#sometimes they literally forget ned is in the group

[mijlen]

how the doomed Franklin Expedition would sing Hi High by LOONA

[ravagedarkness]

Spider-Man: Home Rebuilt, Chapter 28: Reunions

After class, we all met at my apartment. Kitty was the first one to arrive, coming with my old suit and gadgets. According to her, it was rather easy. She literally phased in, grabbed the stuff, and phased out. The only snag she had was the fact there was a tracker in one of the webslingers – one that she quickly found and placed on a nearby city bus.

“They tried it,” she said with a laugh.

Like Kitty suggested, we all wore some of our best clothes. We were all dressed in black and white suits with black trench coats – even Kitty, MJ, and Betty. Once all seven of us were gathered, we made our way down and piled into Craig’s Highlander. Ned, MJ, and I took the back seat. Betty and Kitty took the row in front of us. Craig, of course, drove while Scott sat in the front passenger side. As Craig pulled off, no one said a word. I guess everyone knew how serious this was for me.

I was between Ned and MJ. The latter held my right hand with her left, her fingers laced between mines. On my lap was a bouquet of white roses that I bought at Scott’s urging. Ned was looking out of the window as the snow fell. He then sighed before he looked over at me.

“Hey Peter?” he said.

“What’s up, dude?” I replied.

“How well did I know your Aunt?”

I chuckled. “Extremely well. You’ve been over to our apartment so many times that you practically lived there. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure you’re the reason my room had a bunk bed. You came over for almost any reason – to study, build a Legos set, watch movies, have dinner, you name it.” I smiled. “She would sometimes I say she had two nephews. And, honestly, I agree.”

Ned nodded. “I wish I could remember it… but I’m still glad you guys accepted me.”

I nodded back. “I’m glad you became my friend.”

“I guess dorks of a feather flock together,” MJ deadpanned. She turned her head towards us and gave us a sly smirk.

“I know,” Ned replied. “That’s why you’re back here with us.”

“You’re right, and I hate myself for it every day.”

I smiled as I shook my head. I then looked at her. “We’re your dorks, though.”

“And don’t you two forget it.” This time, she said this in a sincere tone as her smile became wider. I smiled back at her before I leaned over and placed a kiss on her temple.

Sometime later, we arrived at the graveyard Aunt May was buried at. After Craig parked the SUV, we all filed out before I led the group to Aunt May’s grave, carrying the bouquet in my hands as I did so. It didn’t take too long for us to find her. Once we did, we all stood in front of the gravestone. My eyes looked over the gravestone, reading the words that were engraved in it.

“When you help someone, you help everyone,” Betty read aloud.

“Q-q-quite the motto, I-I-I’d say,” Craig commented. I looked over my shoulder at him, seeing him rub his hands up and down his upper arms as he shivered.

“You okay?” I asked him.

“I’m g-g-good. Just every now and again, the w-weather reminds me I’m a South Florida boy.”

“I promise I won’t take too long.”

“T-t-take however long you need, homie. Don’t w-w-worry about me.”

“Are you sure?”

“People are out in the cold every day, man. I’ll be alright.”

I nodded before I looked forward. I stepped up before I kneeled down and laid the bouquet in front of the gravestone. I then stood up and took a step back. I took a moment to try and think of what I wanted to say. After that moment, I decided to just… speak.

“Hey Aunt May,” I said. “…I’m sorry it took me a while to come by and see you. I’ve been going through some things, trying my best to come to terms with decisions I made. But… I’m here now. I, um… I brought some friends with me. You already know Ned and MJ. But, I made some new friends since the last time we spoke. This is Scott Summers, Betty Brant, Kitty Pryde, and Craig Pierre, Jr.”

“H-h-hello,” Craig said.

“Hi, May,” Kitty chimed in.

“Pleased to meet you,” Betty greeted heartily.

“A pleasure,” Scott added.

“Yeah I… I know you’re probably upset with me for isolating myself. It took me a while to realize that it’s okay to have bonds with people again. But, here I am with six people who I’d do anything to protect. I’m still doing the superhero thing. I even joined a group – the X-Men. We’re a bit small now, but we’ve been doing great work, and we’ll only grow, I’m sure. We’ve kind of had our hands full with Scorpion. As a matter of fact, he kind of handed me and Craig our butts on a silver platter.”

“She doesn’t need to know all that, man,” Craig interjected with mock annoyance. I looked over my shoulder and smiled at him. He responded with a wink. I then faced forward and continued.

“We’ll get Scorpion, though,” I promised. “But, beyond that, MJ and I reunited. It wasn’t an easy road, and a lot of it was my fault. But we worked things out. Of course, I got my best friend back, and Betty’s been a great friend too. She’s the one who calls our group The American Idiots.” I smiled briefly. That smile then faded. “Aunt May, I’m going to be honest. I miss you. I’m going to miss you forever. And even to this day, I wish there were things I did differently.” My voice started to crack, and my felt my eyes start to water. However, I was determined to keep on going. “But, I know you wouldn’t want me to dwell on that. I know you wouldn’t want me to keep on carrying the world on my shoulders and I’m… slowly… trying to share that weight with the others.” I paused a moment to wipe the tears away from my eyes with my forearm. “You’ve been like a mother and a big sister to me. Even to this day, you’re a huge influence on how I do things, and I thank you for that. And while I wish you were still alive, I know you’re with me, still. So, I promise, I’ll do everything I can to do you proud. I know I’ll sometimes fail, but I’ll promise you my best.

“So… I won’t say goodbye. I’ll say, see you later.” I smiled. “I Larb you, Aunt May.”

I closed my eyes and bowed my head, making a silent prayer. Some moments later, I felt several arms around me. I lifted my head to see the others hugging me. I smiled happily as I did my best to hug them back. Randomly, I remembered the fact that, for the most part, spiders aren’t social organisms. Internally, I scoffed. I was no ordinary human, so why should I be an ordinary spider?

We remained like that for several seconds before a voice spoke up.

“Oh, sorry guys, I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”

I knew that voice.

We all parted and looked towards the source of the voice. I then raised my eyebrows as my voice went ajar.

In front of us was Happy Hogan. He was the one who spoke up. As usual, he was dressed in his normal black and white suit. And he wasn’t alone. Standing with him was…

“Pepper?” Scott said.

It was indeed Pepper Potts. Memories of the times I had with the Starks flooded my mind. However, they were overshadowed by me wondering how Scott and Pepper knew each other. I looked past her to see a little girl partially behind her right leg. I smiled. That had to be Morgan.

“Scott,” Pepper said. She then looked around at the rest of us. “Craig… Kitty… it’s been a while.”

“Yeah, it has been.” Scott moved to the front of us. He then looked at Happy. “Happy, I see you’re the same as ever.”

“Gotta stay in tiptop shape when you’re protecting one of the powerful women in the world, you know?” At that Scott nodded. After that, Happy looked towards me. “You… I remember you. You’re… Peter right? Still coming by to see May, huh?”

“Is that why you’re all here?” Pepper asked. “I didn’t know you all had a connection with May. Not that I’m surprised, considering how many people she’s reached.”

“They’re here to support me,” I finally said, stepping forward in front of everyone. “…Hello, Ms. Potts. I’m Peter.” I brought my hand out. Pepper stepped forward and took my hand before giving it a rather firm shake.

“Pleased to meet you.”

“The pleasure is all mine.”

“We were helping Peter pay his respects,” Scott explained. “It seems like you two came to do the same. So, we’ll be on our way.”

“Now hold on,” Pepper interjected. “Scott, it’s been a long while. You haven’t visited, you haven’t called. Quite frankly, I’ve been worried about you.”

“I didn’t think we were on good terms still, considering all that happened.”

Pepper grimaced. “I’ve been over that for a while.” She glanced at me, Ned, Betty, and MJ. I looked back at Ned, who looked like he was trying his best to contain his excitement. MJ, for her part, held a neutral expression while Betty looked a bit apprehensive. I looked back at Pepper, who was looking back at Scott. “…Do they know about you, Kitty, and Craig’s side job?”

“…We do,” I spoke up. “…I…” I trailed off before I looked at Scott. He looked at me for a few moments. He then nodded, giving me the go ahead. I looked at Pepper and Hogan. “…My full name is Peter Benjamin Parker. I’m May Parker’s nephew. I’m also Spider-Man.”

Pepper and Hogan looked at me with wide eyes. “Scott… is this true?” Pepper asked, her eyes still locked on me.

“It is,” Scott confirmed.

“So all this time, May Parker was an aunt?” Happy said, looking me up and down. “And her nephew is Spider-Man? How did I not know this?”

“…You used to,” I said. I looked at the both of them. “You both used to.”

“It’s a long story,” Kitty spoke up. “But, I don’t think this is the time or place.”

Pepper looked at Kitty for a moment, then back at me. I could see the gears turning in her head. After some moments, she spoke.

“Happy and I are going to pay our respects to May,” she said. “After that, we’re all going to have a talk at my place. And no, this isn’t up for debate.”

“Understood,” Scott said with a nod. “We’ll give you your space for now.” With that, he beckoned us to follow as he walked several feet away. As the rest of us walked after him, MJ walked up to my side and took my hand.

“So, you knew Pepper?” she asked. “Before The Spell, I mean.”

“I did,” I confirmed. “Everything Stark knew about me, she knew about me.” I paused for a moment. “…I didn’t expect her to be here. But… I guess it was as good of a time to tell them.” As Scott came to a stop, I looked at him. “…Um, Scott… how do you know Pepper?”

“Through Tony,” he said. He sighed. “Tony and I used to be friends. We were even teammates, sort of. …I used to be an Avenger. A Dark Avenger, to be exact.”

I tilted my head. “A Dark Avenger?”

“Basically, Natasha… Black Widow… she had a secret team of Avengers under her leadership. Basically, we handled more of the Black Ops type of missions. We had an arrangement. The government only knew us by our codenames – no real names or even where we were from. On the flipside, if any of us was captured or worse in a foreign country, we’re basically treated as independent actors, with no paper trail to trace us back to SHIELD or the U.S. Government. Needless to say, we got paid under the table. Anyway, Tony and I had a falling out over The Accords. We never got a chance to patch things up. I wanted to talk to him after The Battle for Earth, but… you know.” I nodded sadly. “So, because of that, I distanced myself from The Starks altogether.”

“I see.” I shook my head. “I feel like there’s a lot I don’t know about you.”

“That’s because there is a lot you don’t know about me. But we’ll have that conversation soon enough.”

Soon after, we were on the road again, tailing Pepper and Happy. We drove to downtown Manhattan, stopping briefly to grab food. Morgan was hungry and craving cheeseburgers.

We finally reached Pepper Potts’ penthouse apartment. It was quite large – as large as the X-Men’s apartment. The carpeting was thick, the red furniture set looked extra comfortable, the tiling of the kitchen and dining room area was made of marble – I think it was Rose Aurora.

I didn’t have time to really take in the place, however. Pepper sat us all down in the dining room area. After burgers and drinks were handed out to all of us, she urged me to explain everything. As MJ held my hand under the table, I did, beginning from Tony recruiting me to take on the anti-Accords Avengers in Germany, to him making me his protégé of sorts, to Beck, and all the way to The Spell. Like when I told MJ, Ned, and Betty, I didn’t spare or exaggerate any details.

Once I was done, Pepper and Happy looked at me, quietly dumbfounded. After taking a breath, Pepper spoke.

“Okay,” she began slowly. “…First off, let me begin by saying I’m extremely sorry that you’ve been through all of that.” She shook her head. “Honestly, while Quentin Beck was always a genius, well… I’d say he had more than a few screws loose, but that would assume they were in place to begin with.” She sighed. “But why didn’t you come to me? I could have done something.”

“Well, for one, it happened rather quickly,” I said. “And I… I’m going to be honest, I didn’t handle it well.”

“I’d say,” Happy chimed in. “Then again, apparently, neither did I, so…” He shrugged.

“I just have so many questions.” Pepper stared at me. “Like… where are you living? Are you still in school? And do you have a job?”

“I’m living in a small studio apartment in Manhattan. I’m getting my GED. Scott’s actually my teacher.”

“He’s doing extremely well,” Scott chimed in. “He’s arguably my best student since Kitty.”

I looked at him. There was a look of pride on his face. Bashfully, I nodded towards him before returned my attention to Pepper. “And I got a job as a photographer with the Daily Bugle, thanks to Betty.”

At that, Pepper scoffed. “You’re working for the one news outlet that constantly slanders you on a daily basis and helped fund Justin Hammer. I don’t know how you can do it, but I hope the job pays well.”

“Well, I’m not struggling for rent, so there’s that,” I confirmed. “Plus it’s not all bad. Betty’s a pleasure to work with.” I looked at her and smiled. Betty’s face became a bit flush, but she responded with a smile of her own. I looked back at Pepper. “Things have been rocky for a bit, but because of the people you see here with me, I’ve been doing a lot better.”

“I see.” Pepper went quiet again. During this, I picked up my cheeseburger with my freehand and took a bite out it. It was during this that Pepper spoke again, leaning forward. “Peter, Scott… I know this is a last moment request but… is there any way the two of you can swing by Stark Industries tomorrow. I feel like there’s a lot the three of us need to catch up on.”

“Yeah, about that,” MJ spoke. She squeezed my hand gently, causing me to look at her. “I’m coming with. As a matter of fact, the rest of the American Idiots are coming, too.”

Pepper tilted her head. “I’m sorry, American Idiots?”

“Everyone you see here sans Scott is an American Idiot,” Craig explained. “…It’s because of the St. James incident. It’s our thing. Thank Betty for that. But yeah, looks like we’re coming along.”

“…Okay, no offense, but given the sensitivity of what we’ll be talking about, I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”

“Just let it happen,” Scott said. “Michelle, here, is rather protective of Peter, as one would be with their significant other. And the X-Men and The American Idiots are basically his family. Given that I believe what you’re going to talk to Peter and myself about is going to be major, I think the both of us would be more comfortable if they were around.”

“Besides, if you say no, Kitty and I will just sneak in with the others,” Ned said simply.

At that, Hogan scoffed as he looked over at Ned. “Look, I understand you’re pretty smart, being a Midtown student and all, and Kitty here is a superhero. But SI’s security system is the best in the world – especially since I’m the head of it. Do you honestly think you guys could sneak in?”

As if it to answer that question, Kitty, who was sitting next to Happy, lifted up her left hand and dropped a wallet on the table, right in front of him. “This you?” she asked. Happy raised his eyebrows before he slowly picked up the wallet opened it. He then cleared his throat as he sheepishly put the wallet away in his suit jacket.

“Mommy,” Morgan spoke up, surprising me.

“Yes sweetheart?” Pepper replied.

“Is she a magician?”

At that, Kitty chuckled. “No, Morgan. I’m just a ninja.”

At that, Morgan’s eyes lit up. “COOOOOOL!!!”

“And just because of that, you’re on my list of babysitters,” Pepper remarked. Something told me she was serious. “Fine, you can all come. But I’m going to trust that you guys comport yourselves in a proper manner. Also – and I guess this goes without saying, given that you’re all familiar with the extracurricular activities of Scott, Kitty, Craig, and Peter here – you didn’t hear anything about what will be talked about tomorrow. Understood?” We all said our confirmations. “Good.”

Things went quiet for a bit. And then…

“Peter,” Morgan said.

“Yes, Morgan?” I replied.

“Are you really Spider-Man?”

“I am.” I smirked.

“Can you take me webslinging?”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Pepper give me a warning glare. At that, I chuckled.

“Maybe when you’re older.”

[ambivalence-is-me]

Remember Me

peter parker x reader

summary: you were in love with someone you don’t remember. Peter is pretty sure he knows who that guy is. Even if he doesn’t want to admit it.

warnings: angst?????

words: 3,000k+

note: I apologize for any grammatical error. Had this idea in my mind and I just had to get it out.

———————————————-

It’s gotten better. A lot better.

Those first few months after the whole world forgot Peter Parker existed were, to put it mildly, rough. He had never felt more alone. There is literally not a single person that remembers who he is and it was slowly killing him inside. He had watched from afar how MJ and Ned kept on with their lives, he made sure they were out of danger because how can he not? As long as he could, he would make sure they were out of harms way. Sadly, that stopped when they both went their ways to MIT and he had to stay behind.

He wanted to follow them, he really really did but he had to be realistic here. He had to get his shit together first, study, get a job, do some Spider-Man stuff and save as much money as he can. THEN he can go with them. It seemed so freaking far away but it would have to do. Maybe it’s better this way. Being away from them would keep them safe and that’s the whole reason why he is in this mess anyway. Sometimes at night, when the sadness would appear, he thought about being selfish. He really wanted to be selfish and just swing to them and explain everything. He knew they would listen to him, he knew they would understand but he can’t ruin the good things that are happening for them right now. Not anymore.

So he cried. He cried and shoved those possibilities to the back of his mind. For now, he would do what he can. Lay low and be Spider-Man, not get in anyones way. And it was working. Well, for a while. After getting into college, taking some classes and everything slowly coming together, you came in the picture. He knew life always had something up its sleeve for him, he’s literally living proof that his life was not easy so now he lived on the edge. Skeptical about everything. So, when he saw you walking his way, he freaked out. You weren’t new, not exactly.

“Peter Parker?”

So why did you walk up to him and said his name very confidently like you knew exactly who he was. Like, he didn’t tell a wizard to make the whole world forget about him. Lets back track a little. No, you weren’t a new face to him because you were also part of his friend’s group in Midtown High. You and him weren’t close like MJ and Ned but you were friends. You two would catch movies together, study together, share classes, he considered you a friend and he knew you did too.

You were one of the nicest person he had ever met. You were sort of the mom of the group. He was pretty reckless, not gonna lie, MJ was the most realistic one and of course there was Ned. You fit right in now that he thought about it. You would ask them if they did their homework, if they slept well, you always had at least 3 snacks in your bag; most of them would be gone by the end of the day thanks to him and Ned. Sometimes you would walk with them home and you would text them at night to make sure they all made it home safely. You were a great friend, an amazing friend now that he thought about it. And yet, he never told you about his other identity. He doesn’t know why, not really but he just didn’t. That’s a good thing though, he thought, that way he always kept you safe. Except when Mysterio ruined that for him of course. And yet, even though you felt hurt that he never told you about his secret, you’d understand and you never resented him for it.

But now you also forgot who he was. Or did you? He remembers that day very clearly. After his name left your lips, he just stared at you, mouth wide open with disbelief on his face.

“Professor Schidt told me your name. He said you were the best of the class and I’m in desperate need of help. Me and math just don’t go together.”

He remembers how he felt the hole in his heart deepen. He should’ve know you didn’t remember him. He shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up. But there you were, unknowingly offering him a second chance. After that day, after you asking him if he could tutor you, you’d been the light at the of the tunnel. He wanted to say no to the tutoring, he really did. He can’t get close again, he can’t risk someone finding out his secret, he wouldn’t live with himself if he put someone else’s life in danger. Specially someone as special as you. Because even if he sometimes feels like he took your friendship for granted back in the day, you were pretty dang special and he swears he will never forget it again.

But he said yes and ever since then, you two would spend quite a lot of time together. Not at the beginning. At first he just strictly stayed to the tutoring and that’s it. Nothing else, nada. Even if he wanted to be your friend again, he was not going to risk it.

That didn’t work out. Not when you were so freaking good. Just- special. You were still very much yourself, so kind, a little bit sarcastic at times and caring. And you never gave up on him. After some tutoring sessions, you’d ask him to hang out and he would always say no but you never gave up. And that’s exactly something you’d do back in the day, you never gave up.

“I wouldn’t want someone to give up on me, so why would I? If they’re worth it, they’re worth it” You said one time. And there you were once again proving him that he definitely took you for granted. But he was so freaking happy he had you because it felt like you never left. Even if you didn’t remember all the times you hanged out together, the movie nights, the science jokes you never got, it was still a great time.

So now, you were the only person in the world who knew who this Peter Parker was and he was okay with that. Having said that, yes, it’s gotten a lot better. Exceptttt, of course, life always got in the way because when had he ever gotten a break.

It’s been about a year and a half now since all of the chaos and him being your friend again. During the summer and holidays he would check in on MJ and Ned and watch from afar but that’s it. He never made an approach to them, still scared he wouldn’t have the strength to keep everything to himself so he never tried again. On the other hand, he still kept his other identity from you very religiously. His excuses for bruises and getting late to the movies or any other activity have gotten pretty good now that he was independent but he still didn’t want you to find out who he was at night. He was pretty proud of himself for not revealing anything during all that time.

So, that’s not currently his problem. Nope. He should see it coming but no. This is not the case and this is something he absolutely never ever expected. Not in a million years.

You remember him. Okay no, no you don’t. At all. Okay okay, he would’ve prefer that obviously but no. You…love him?

Love? Loved? He was so confused.

“How can this be? How can you love someone you don’t even remember?” You asked him.

How in the world is he supposed to know? He was so confused. So, let’s go back a little.

It was a Monday, you ran to him after class. Breathless you told him of the discovery you made on your mom’s house during the weekend after you went visit her. It was something you did once every 2-3 weeks. Sometimes he came along too because he loved your mom’s cooking, he missed a home cook meal. But that’s a story for another day.

“I found a diary! I wrote all this embarrassing stuff while I was in high school. You know typical teenager stuff”

“I didn’t have a diary” he had said with a smile that screamed I-know-something-you-don’t. Boy he was wrong.

“Okay whatever. Point is, I started reading it. Very cringe btw BUT I found something very interesting and now I’m just confused”. Your eyes wide, cheeks warm after running and hands holding some books. His eyes widened for effect and replied “Oh no. A teenager’s high school experience interesting? Tell me more”.

That earned him a smack on the arm. You started walking together to his next class. You had the next 3 hours free and you always walked him to his class.

“I’m serious. You’re the smart one in this friendship. Can’t you just help me figure it out?”. Not true, you were also very smart. Maybe math was not your forte but you’d still make a great doctor or nurse. You had the heart and passion for it. And the intelligence too.

“Ookay I guess. Don’t know how my intelligence plays a part in your high school experience but I can help. What did you find?” You laughed. Of course he’s still make a joke even if he knew you were low key freaking out about whatever was on your mind.

He saw you take out a small notebook and flip through some pages. You were still walking, he still had time to make on time to class, so they were slowly walking. Then you started reading.

You were definitely in love. Or at least had very strong feelings to someone you cared about. They weren’t the typical high school crush feelings either. No, this was pretty deep stuff for a 16 year old. It was actually really good. You could be a writer if you wanted to because damn, hearing you read that stuff was making him think about MJ and their time together..shit. No, he was doing so well.

“Okay so, you liked someone from your high school. What’s the problem?”

“I don’t remember him, Peter. How can that be? How can I write about a boy I like so much and not even remember him? Did he even exist? Did I make him up?”

Hold on…what? You don’t-remember the guy you liked?…it couldn’t be..right?

He stopped walking and looked at her. All funny expressions gone from his face.

“What? No. That’s-no. You must’ve written his name somewhere in there. Did you look?” You rolled your eyes. As if you hadn’t read the entire diary three times now trying to figure this shit out.

“Of course, Pete. I looked everywhere and nothing. Not even some initials. No name. Just me writing feelings about him.”

No no. Just because she didn’t write the name of the guy does not mean she’s talking about him. Nope. Maybe she just didn’t write the guy’s name because he was a bad person. Yeah, that makes sense…right?

“That’s uh- maybe you wrote it in code? You’re smart and you like all that clue stuff. Maybe it’s in a clue!!” He wasn’t wrong. You did like all that stuff.

“I-yeah okay could be but I’m just confused Peter. I don’t remember liking a guy in high school. Like at all -and specially liking him so deeply. This isn’t a crush, I really liked this guy. Look!”

And he did. Briefly because dang, you were a good writer. You wrote like you’ve been writing poems all your life. He could feel all the emotions you had put in those words and he didn’t like how it made him feel.

Shit.

“I know you have class now. I just- I’ve been thinking about this ever since I got back. Do you think I can drop by after and we can keep looking into it?” He wanted to say no. Because what if-? No. Actually no, he needed to find out now. There is no way she ‘s talking about himself.

“Yeah yeah of course. This is uh- interesting for sure. I don’t know how I can help but I’m here for you. You know I am” and that was the truth. Because even if you didn’t know about Spider-Man, he was always looking out for you. While he was in and out of the suit. You mean too much.

You gave him your signature smile. That lovely smile of yours. “It’s enough, Pete. Thank you.” You sighed and continued walking until you were close to his destination. “Honestly, somewhere I described him like brown eyes, brown hair and crazy smart. Like what? That could literally be any guy!! I’m so mad at myself.”

That was pretty generic right? He was pretty basic looking if you asked him. So again, there was still hope that you weren’t talking about him.

“Um, yeah anyone.” He coughed and stopped outside his classroom. “Okay so, you try and find out anymore clues and I’ll meet you at my place later yeah?”. You nodded and gave him a small smile.

“You got it. Have a good class! Pay attention!” With that and a hug you walked away. He did not pay attention to class at all. How can he when there’s a possibility that his best friend was in love with him back when they were friends while he was with another girl and she doesn’t remember now because he made her forget?

Yeah what the fuck.

He couldn’t get out of that room fast enough. He basically sprinted back to his apartment but during the way he slowed down. Did he really want to figure this out? What if he didn’t like the answer?

Before he knew it, he was in his apartment. He threw his backpack on the floor and started pacing. A million thoughts through his mind. How can that even happen? Was it really possible?

Then you were knocking on his door. He let out a big breath. Okay, there’s no going back now. He let you in with a nervous smile. The first thing he noticed was your fallen expression. Oh no. You figured it out.

Was it him?

“Whats wrong? Why do you look so sad?”

You sat on his bed, quiet and a far away look in your eye. In your hand, the diary.

He swallowed. His heart was beating so fast he thought it was going to leave his body. “Y/N?”…

“He was in love with someone else”.

Fuck.

Your voice was so sad, it resembled your whole posture. He couldn’t breathe. What is happening? You handed him the diary. It was book-marked. With shaky hands he took it out of your hands and found the page that was marked.

He closed his eyes. It can’t be him. There were many other brown haired, brown eyed smart guys in Midtown. He wasn’t the only one. It’s. Not. Him.

He started reading.

Shit.

She wrote about a couple. A couple that resembled him and MJ a little too much. She wrote about listening to the guy ramble on about the girl he had kissed, the girl he really liked and now had. She wrote about how her heart broke in a million pieces because she was in love with someone that would never return her love. She wrote about keeping it in, hiding her emotions as best as possible and supporting the guy, her friend. Because she loved him and she was selfless. If he was happy then she’d push her feelings deep down. Even if it hurt like a bitch.

He couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t stop reading it actually. He felt his heart break the longer he kept reading, the longer he read it again and again. How in the world? Just- how can this happen?

He never ever expected this. Was he really so oblivious to her feelings? Or did she really hide it well? They talked everyday, they shared many moments together, many laughs together and she loved him.

She never told him. He never found out.

Until now. And she doesn’t even know that she’s talking about him. This is so fucked up. How do you proceed from this? Does he tell her the truth? Does he pretend he doesn’t know who this guy is? Why does shit like this continue to happen to him? He swallowed and slowly looked at her sitting beside him. She looked sad and he hates it. He can’t imagine how broken she must’ve been while writing this. How many tears have you shed? How many nights did you cry yourself to sleep? He hates the thought of you crying because of him, because he made you cry and he broke your fucking heart.

He hates himself.

“I’-I’m so sorry, Y/N”

You shook your head. “It’s not your fault, Pete.”

But it was. Everything was his fault.

“Maybe this is why I don’t remember? Maybe my mind blocked his existence because I was in too much pain? You know like-trauma—“

“Why didn’t you say anything?” He had to know. Why didn’t you say something? Before he got with MJ, even before Liz just, why didn’t you say anything.

You looked at him. A conflicted glint in your eye. “I- I don’t know, Peter. I don’t even remember this happening.”

He stopped up and started pacing again. “Okay let’s just. Okay.” He sighed, stopped and stood in front of you. “Let’s say, hypothetically, you were really good friends with the guy. Close friends. Why wouldn’t you mention it to him? That you-you know- you like him”.

“Peter” you sighed and also stood up. “I-I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to ruin that friendship. I-“ You looked away from his eyes and looked down. He didn’t like it when he couldn’t see your expressions. Not when he had gotten to know them so well. “If we were friends and I liked him as more than a friend I definitely wouldn’t want to ruin that and obviously he liked someone else. There was no way I was going to tell him.” You sighed and looked back up at him. You gave a little sad shrug. As if, you were used to it.

Used to being second best. Used to being left behind, and used to hiding your true feelings. Because it was what you were used to. You loved being part of their little group. You loved all your friends, they were great friends. You’d do anything for them and you knew that to some extent, they’d do it for you too. Or you’d hope. You started second guessing yourself when Peter and MJ got a little too close. Peter was a pure soul and that’s what you love about him. He was selfless, he was caring, he was passionate and he was someone you couldn’t have. You were there for him when he got the Stark Internship, when he was crushing on Liz, you were there for him when she had left and he was sad. You were there for him when he’d had his weird out of nowhere bruises, you were there for him when he started developing feelings for MJ. You were there for him when Mr. Stark died.

You were always there. But what about him? Where was him? He had failed her and she doesn’t even know it. How is he supposed to go on while knowing this? He is still processing. Does she even still feel the same? Does he even what to know?

He thought that making the world forget his existence would be better, easier. But it seemed that life for Peter Parker isn’t meant to be that way.

[inknopewetrust]

Manipulate Me

Summary: As Peter travels Europe as a normal kid, the world’s peril throws a wrench in his plans. With you by his side chaperoning the trip as an undercover S.H.I.E.L.D agent, the mysterious introduction of Quentin Beck leaves you breathless. 

Pairing: Quentin Beck/Mysterio x Fem!Reader 

Word Count: 2.8k

Warnings: None! 

A/N: Thanks so much for requesting this @mrs-blooooom​ ! I had a great time writing for Quentin Beck again. For context, reader is Peter’s older sister but also happens to be a shield agent (it was the easiest route of explanation as to why she would be meeting with Fury and Maria Hill). Requests are currently OPEN and you can check out who I write for in my request guidelines tagged in my bio. Thanks for reading! :) *gif not mine* I do not own any of the dialogue from the film. 

“May-” 

“-And don’t forget the passports! Oh! The passports!” 

“May!” 

May stopped scrambling around the apartment only to find that you had the two passports already in your hand. The tired aunt pushed her disheveled hair out of her face, pushing her glasses back up her nose, and slowly calming down. It was fine... Peter had you, Peter had all his friends, Peter would be fine in Europe. 

“Everything is going to go fine. I’ll be with him at all times and if he decides to wander off and do his Spiderman stuff––well then I’ll just have to call in some Avengers to stop him.”  

“I trust that you’ll be able to keep him out of trouble if it comes down to it.” May picked up Peter’s suitcase off the floor and listened to his heavy footsteps draw down the hallway and into the living room where you had gathered with her. 

“All ready?” He asked with those inquisitively wide eyes that reminded you so much of your mom. May handed him the suitcase but not before capturing the boy in a tight hug. Her “motherly” instincts grew since she returned from the blip. It was strange without the two of them. You, stuck here in New York without a leader in either Fury or Tony and the remaining members of S.H.I.E.L.D, Avengers and then the developed Sword, were left to pick up the pieces and build a life without them. That was the most difficult part. 

“Promise me that you won’t get into any trouble?” May asked Peter who in reply rolled his eyes with a chuckle. 

“It’s just a school trip. Besides, Y/n is going to be there and I’m sure she’s told you a million times that she can keep me in check.” You smacked the side of his head but he just ignored you and turned to the door, opening it with a rough pull with his spider-y force. 

“We’ll see you in a few weeks, May!” 

If you were able to take back all the words you said and never go to Europe, you would ask Stephen Strange to reverse time. 

Venice was a mess. The water-creature-man-thing...? had erupted the small city into a chaotic terror with locals and terrified students trying to find cover. Peter was somewhere flying with webs while another hero whom you had never seen before was assisting him. After a few minutes of trying to guide a group of students to safety, you secured cover underneath an awning in front of a store. 

“Ms. Parker! What do we do!?” Flash was almost in tears from fear which you couldn’t help but judge. It was water? the kid survived Thanos’ snap so he could survive this. Not to mention Fury would have your ass if any of the kids died on your watch. 

Out of nowhere the ground started to fill up with water and cracking of concrete or bricks began echoing throughout the small courtyard you trapped them all in. The green man came swooshing in with a cloud of smoke, almost like an illusion, and stopped the water with the sheer force of his magical abilities. The creature reformed into what looked like a water man and the green man dodged the attack with made the sound of bricks tumbling increase in intensity. Suddenly, the tower to your right began crumbling and you pulled as many students as you could closer to the building you sought shelter next to. 

“Get back! Get back!” 

“Who is that guy!?” Jason, one of the students shouted out but you couldn’t answer the question because you didn’t know. 

“I don’t know, but he’s kicking that waters ass.” Brad voiced exactly what you would have said. 

The green man continued to fight the water as the tower crumbled beside you all and then, like the blink of an eye, the monster was gone and the water scattered, soaking your shoes with a safety that was much welcomed. The man landed to sounds of cheering from the students and locals that found themselves in the same spot as you. But something was different. 

Maybe it was the fact that you couldn’t see his face, or maybe the fact that you had never heard of this hero and you literally worked for the agency that worked with them all. Maybe he wasn’t from this world? Space? Another universe? You could have sworn that you heard of the idea of a multiverse. 

But maybe it was the fact that beneath all that smoke and mirrors that made up the helmet of the mysterious man, it felt as though when he looked around at his admiring fans, his eyes trained on you, staring through your soul with some feeling that wasn’t welcomed or unwanted either. Intrigue, that’s what it was. And when he flew off, everyone was left with a curiosity that sparked a great debate throughout the entire world. Who was this man? 

Well, the T.V. at the hotel identified him as Mysterio. Peter managed to make it back in one piece which you were able to celebrate in a brief moment outside before the voices of interested students and the television interrupted the moment. Betty and Ned were searching every website for some kind of clue but nothing other than what the news reported was to be taken as fact. It wasn’t aliens, it wasn’t witches, it was just another hero. 

So that was what you went with. That was until you opened your door to Fury sitting in a chair next to the window. 

“Oh my God!” You shrieked and Fury laughed, laughed, at you. 

“You scare too easy.” 

“What are you doing here? I thought you were in spa-” 

The slight reveal of a green hand made you shut up. "Fury” tilted his head with a slight “Ah, well.” 

“Is this about that Mysterio guy?” 

“We’ve got him at a site. Says he’s from another Earth and that these creatures destroyed his own and intend to destroy this one too.” 

“Another Earth? So, the multiverse.. it’s real?” 

“Fury” didn’t respond to that, but he simply rose and gestured over his shoulder to the window. 

“There is a car outside. Go and wait in it while I go get Peter. The big man told me I need to scare the kid.” You smiled at the thought as the man left to go retrieve your brother. 

You had been part of the world of superheroes far longer than Peter had. You had been there when Loki first attacked New York way back when and that seemed like so many years ago. With the blip, it seems like an entire eternity. Nick never let you in on his secrets of his relationship with Carol Danvers, but you had met the Skrulls when you went on a mission three months ago to visit Monica Rambeau in space. Unlike her, you weren’t blessed with some badass powers, though she didn’t always have them. 

Peter looked terrified walking out to the car and when he saw you inside, he breathed a sigh of relief that he wouldn’t be alone. The site of S.H.I.E.L.D in Italy wasn’t far from where you had all taken up residence for the last day or two, but it was secluded, down in the catacombs of old buildings that no one would suspect. It reminded Peter of a Mission Impossible movie that you had watched with him before the two of you left for Europe, he felt more like a spy than a superhero in that moment. 

As you walked behind the two down the long corridors of the abandoned treasure that was used as a make-shift S.H.I.E.L.D, you were surprised to see Maria at a computer, though now knowing about Fury, you were sure it wasn’t even her. The center of the room was filled with scattered agents who you weren’t familiar with and then a projection in the middle of the room, along with the man without the helmet. 

You weren’t one for fawning over men. Jesus, you worked with Thor sometimes and while you were aware of his Godly looks, you never gawked. But this man, he wasn’t a God, he was just naturally beautiful. Dark hair, blueish-gray eyes that surely did pierce your soul, and a stature of a man who knew how to carry himself with power in the world. It was like he walked out of your dreams and into reality. 

“This is Mr. Beck.” Fury introduced you and Peter to the man. Mr. Beck approached Peter with a small smile and held out his hand. Peter looked nervous but responded with his own shake. 

“Mysterio?” 

“What?” 

“It’s just what my friends were calling you.” 

“Well, you can call me Quentin. You handled yourself well out there today. I saw what you did with the tower. We could use someone like you on my world.” 

Peter looked puzzled but Quentin looked behind the boy to you. He held out his hand with another smile which you returned. Maybe there was a shock when you touched hands, but you were sure it was just your imagination. 

“Y/n Parker, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.” 

“It’s good to meet you, Y/n.” 

“Likewise.” 

Did time rush by faster when you were in the presence of someone you were obviously attracted to? Yes, because before you knew it, the night was over, and Fury was leading you and Peter back out to the car. Peter was absolutely smitten with Quentin and could hardly break conversation. The man gave the attention to Peter like Tony did. It was like life imitating itself in another time. Quentin reminded you so much of Tony. Smooth with words, handsome, gifted in almost an unfair way, and he took an interest in the last piece of close family you had. You wanted nothing more than for Peter to have a figure in his life to give him a positive purpose. With Tony gone, he’s struggled trying to find his niche again. 

“See you, kid.” Quentin looked disappointed but hopefully that his and Peter’s paths would cross again one day, even with Peter trying to avoid being identified by his class or the world. At some point, someone would figure it out if they hadn’t already. 

“Yeah, see you.” Peter said as he walked out, following Dimitri, who Fury ordered to keep Peter in check with you. You were more than capable of doing it yourself but for some reason, Fury felt the need to send another agent. 

“Good luck, Quentin.” You told him and he nodded his head, glancing at the holographic map of Venice next to him. 

“I fear I’ll need it. But I’m hopeful that the good luck will be for more than just winning this fight.”

Swoon. That’s what you did for the remainder of the night and into the early morning. You couldn’t sleep a wink after the revelations that Quentin relayed to you and Peter about the elementals. That worried you too. How in the world was Peter supposed to sit by while other heroes with indisposed and couldn’t help? Sam and Bucky were on their own missions, Carole and Monica were off, Stephen and Wanda were no use and Thor was off on his own adventures with that team of riff-raffs from space–you know, the one with the talking tree. 

But somewhere in all the jumble of thoughts, the scenery of the canal that had been a scene of something far different, calmed the noise. Enjoy the trip. This was the first time in years that you had traveled for something other than work and yet it was still filling every thought and moment. The thoughts were so loud and invasive that you didn’t register the person coming up to your right, ready to take the bag off your shoulders. You felt the tug and turned around, ready to punch the person but they dogged it, pulling it off your shoulder. It was a game of tug of war for the bag, but the person was strong. 

“Let go! I said let go!” You pulled as hard as you could, therefore the bag came flying back to you and its contents spread across the sidewalk. The person glanced at the wallet on the ground and then back at you before you both dove to the ground. They grabbed it first and you tackled them to the ground. Wrestling with grunts and yells, you hadn’t noticed the audience of one that rushed to help. A blast of green light shot the person off of you and you clutched the wallet to your chest tightly, trying to reel in your ragged breath. 

“I heard yelling from my hotel...” The hero started only to realize that it was you and with a turn of your head, you had realized it was him, Quentin. 

“Oh! Are you alright?” He extended a hand, which you readily took to stand. He then helped collect the scattered items and put them back in the now ripped bag before handing it back to you. 

“I’m fine. Thank you.” 

“It’s no problem.” There was a brief, awkward lull but you weren’t sure what else to say. 

“So, do you always wander around at night in a city you don’t know?” It was an icebreaker, a line that he knew would make you at least chuckle. 

“No... I just had a lot on my mind. What you told us in there–it’s a lot of information to retain.” 

“I’m sure an agent like you could handle it though.” You smiled bashfully at the compliment. Quentin gestured over his shoulder and shoved his hands in his pockets. You realized he wasn’t wearing his uniform anymore but just a pullover sweater and some dark jeans. How he shot the green light in the first place you didn’t know, but all heroes worked a little differently you suppose. 

“Would you like to take a walk? I promise I won’t try to steal your wallet.” 

“How do I know I can trust you?” The conversation was so light, and carefree that for the first time in a long time, you felt like a normal person. Quentin returned your cheeky smile and began walking. 

“I’m pretty sure a woman like you could figure out who trust and who not avoid. Isn’t that what they train you for? Agents?” 

“I suppose so, yes.” 

“Can I ask you something?” You asked Quentin and he looked at you with a nod of his head. 

“How did you know the elementals would turn up in our Earth?” 

“Intelligence. My wife, she had worked for our version of your agency. Before they came to destroy our city, one had already manifested itself in Mexico. It was as if there would be a pattern to follow. So when she passed, I used her intelligence to figure out where they might be, which led me here.” 

“I’m sorry for your loss.” 

“Thank you, it’s been some time now. She would be glad to see Peter helping me, and you helping out with the cause.” 

“Peter really took a liking to you. I could see it in the way he could barely contain himself.” You laughed, changing the heavy subject to one more light. 

“He’s a good kid. You’re related I assume?” 

“My little brother.” 

“You should be proud of him. He is doing a lot of good for the world. I just wish he was more confident in his abilities to realize identity protect isn’t everything.” 

Quentin was right, it wasn’t everything. But it was more than identity for Peter. It was also no Tony to lead the way, his want to be a normal kid, his need to have friends and well, MJ to like him. But neither of you would know what it was like to be a teen hero, that was a lot of unneeded pressure. 

“It seems that I brought you around full circle.” The sound of Quentin’s voice broke the silence and the realization that you were outside the barely standing hotel. You sighed and tugged the bag on your shoulder. 

“Thanks for saving the day, Mysterio.” 

“Anything to help protect Agent Parker.” 

If you hadn’t just met him a few hours ago, you would have asked him to come upstairs but that was far too forward for the world you created for yourself, so you extended your hand as he had earlier. 

“May our paths cross again.” 

He grasped your hand tightly and agreed. 

“Hopefully under better circumstances.” 

You watched then as he walked away, unaware of the man underneath the facade of Mysterio. How he already knew who you were, knew all your secrets, and was ready to manipulate you to take down the institution that denied him success so many years ago. 

[neko-rogers]

hey!! I’m not sure if your inbox is still open but I thought I’d send this just in case! what would you think abt a dark!peter who’s obsessed w s/o and offers to have her stay with him during like the stay-at-home pet of covid so she’s not alone then when it’s lifted he’s like lol you’re not leaving. sorry that’s kinda long and super specific. i absolutely love your writing though!!💗

Jamie All Over

words: 2,040 (no, i should be sorry bc this was chaotic)

tags: didn’t expect it to be this LONG, manipulative!peter parker, grooming, overprotectiveness, slight mentions of sex, don’t expect too much lmao its a headcanon

a/n: hi babe! i wasn’t entirely sure if you wanted this as a one shot (but if u do let me know!)

so you’re pretty unaware of every move peter is trying to do with you, you know? you were not really sure if it was a kind gesture, as the gentleman he seemed to be, or was it just a special treatment

ever since second year and until now as both of you were on your fourth year, he was consistent with his efforts

these moves were moments like when he would carry your books to your next class or confidently invite you to a study ‘date’ at the library after – often times he tells that his friends were invited, but would never show up later on

sometimes he would bring you lunch. you tried to turn it down kindly, but he insists that it was purposely packed as an extra for when he stays late around the university.

it was a lie though. anyone could tell by the way it was prepared looking very appetizing and tasted just as amazing at it was presented. 

and as peter had mentioned that he lived alone, you also assumed he was the one to make his meals. you were so sure he doesn’t pack for an extra and intentionally wants to impress you with his skills.

“hey, y/n!,” he calls, “look this eggroll has a cute design!”

he honestly was an epitome of a walking sunshine. his smile seemed so pure and you never felt any ill-intent for every gesture he had done for you

his friends seemed very welcoming the moment he introduced you to his group

you got along with ned who seemed to be just as joyful and funny as peter. meanwhile mj was a bit more of a tough cookie, nevertheless you both eventually got a long better than you expected

however, it came to one point wherein your own group of friends started being disheartened with your lack of communication

“you’ve been spending more time with that parker boy, huh?” “yeah, kinda?” “are you two like... dating?” “oh no! no... no... nooo!”

the moment they frowned at you was then that you realized and felt a little more guilty. you always remembered that friends were supposed to be friends despite the lack of time and effort, right?

somehow you tried to compensate for the lack of time with your friends. but every minute you spend felt more awkward than before

they weren’t sharing the same vibe with you and you were starting to question if it had been always like it – were you only adjusting to them?

you reached out for peter, considering that he became one of the closest and trusted people around the university. plus, he seemed to have genuinely great friends

“do you feel happy when you’re spending time with them?”

“well i used to but recently–”

“then you should stop being friends with them.”

you were upset for a second. the way he instantly told you that cutting ties with them would be the (only) option

he sounded serious on the other end of the line and you were just speechless for a moment. the dead air between lines was evident, but you didn’t know what to say

“sorry,” peter makes up, “i didn’t mean to sound too serious. i just don’t like people who are rude, especially to you.”

“oh, it’s fine. i totally get it.” you felt a batch of butterflies around your stomach. someone actually cared for you!!!

the moment you didn’t hesitate on losing your friendship with your past friends and moved on with joining peter’s group, things felt lighter.

somehow you felt more expressive than you realized. they were open to your ideas and thoughts, just as you were with them. you felt super comfortable and realized that you weren’t holding back on anything anymore

that’s why you had expected your winter break to be better than your past ones

everyone agreed to skate around the ice rink in rockefeller for christmas. along with it, also spending new year’s eve at the time square

news flash: you finally had the cliche new year’s eve kiss, with none other than peter parker!!! hooray!!!

for anyone who had common sense, your feelings for peter had accentuated. you weren’t denying it either, and the boy wasn’t oblivious to it too

he was just so irresistible and kind to you, like, all the time – to surreal, honestly

you felt and KNEW you were spoiled with peter (and his friends, who liked to spend time with you outside too, just not as much as him)

just as you were planning your spring break activities, it had to be postponed for another time

a lockdown had to be implemented around the country as it was under the state of a pandemic

mj and ned told the group that they’ll be with their families since lectures had to be concluded for the mean time

you planned to do the same, but you expected that this situation wouldn’t last long. so you chose to stay in your dorm rather than return to your hometown

completely sucks since you not only don’t get to hang out with your friends, but you weren’t able to see anyone in person...

until you got a text from peter

he was literally inviting you over his apartment since he explained that he wasn’t returning home either

you practically rushed to pack a small amount of clothes for a sleepover whilst not forgetting to wear a mask (bc it’s fucking important ok)

you arrived at his address and a big warm hug ensues 

his unit was so tidy and you were convinced he did it to impress you

peter was so happy to see you, acknowledging that you’re also spending a few nights with him

the nights mostly consisted of eating snacks and binge watching movies

however during one of those nights, both of you got a bonus – making out on his couch and further, completely forgetting the television

making out with peter wasn’t awkward at all. most of the time he was the one in control, which you didn’t mind

his hands treated you so gently but the way he teased you made you crave for more than what he was offering

a lot of whining, swearing, and begging – you weren’t aware but he was enjoying it a lot

on his side, he did praise you from time to time, but most of it consisted of raw tension and actions. the room was full of grunts and short breaths 

just want to include how sexy peter would be while he moans all over you. like his whole sunshine personality just drained away the moment he places his hands on either sides of your waist

the next day you felt like a princess even though you know it shouldn’t be???

apparently peter prepared breakfast for you and you felt embarrassed walking around his place only in the shirt you wore yesterday and underwear

just when you thought the extra lunch he packs for you was already amazing, the breakfast he prepared whilst being fresh and hot was just incredible

“you really like it?”

“of course! you really have to teach me to cook sometimes”

peter laughs and jokes, “yeah, don’t worry. i feel like we’ve got a lot of time ahead.”

ok fast forward to a few more days when you were beginning to feel like a freeloader. he lets you borrow a few of his clothes as yours were in the laundry

by the time you wanted to stop by your place, peter started to be more... clingy

at first he didn’t want you to go but after a few more debates, he felt defeated and instead insisted on going with you

eventually you caved and let him. it wasn’t that bad either, he talked to you about a lot of things on the way leaving you entertained the whole walk without realizing how far it had been

he helped you ‘pack’ more stuff so you wouldn’t be going back and forth from his place and yours. you felt like you were going out of town for a month with the amount of clothes and products

both of you returned to his place around late afternoon. you felt pretty tired and didn’t hesitate to pass out on the living room couch

when you woke up you sensed that you were in peter’s bedroom, meaning he carried and tucked you during the night

plus! an arm was wrapped around your midriff and you could feel peter’s breathing against your side

you closed your eyes and appreciated the moment. it was cute and made butterflies flutter around your stomach, and you tried not to move much to not wake him up

anyways apparently the pandemic lasted longer, and more serious, than expected (fuck the government and their incompetency) 

you spent more time with peter and was thankful that you didn’t spend this quarantine alone

within a blink of an eye, a month and a half already had passed. you couldn’t deny that most, or all, days have been unproductive

eat, cook, watch tv, cuddle, fuck, repeatedly get spoiled??? yeah sounds like the dream

weird though because you haven’t completely brought up to peter if you’re actually in a relationship with him. oh no were you just friends with (a lot) of benefits??

but you also felt like it wasn’t the time to bring it up. neither of you were saying anything so it was best to let it be for the fear that things might go downhill from there

anyways this continued for more weeks, especially since the ‘stay-at-home’ policy was deemed necessary

you started to help him do errands around the apartment just to feel like you weren’t an actual freeloader – but it wasn’t a surprise when he kept insisting that you should relax

more cute moments

more sexy times

and more cuddles during night (peter’s grip became tighter every night, but you shrugged it off assuming that it was just you getting homesick and overthinking)

ok but when you brought up being homesick and mentioned that you planned peter wasn’t entirely happy about it

the way he acted wasn’t just clingy. he insisted that he’d be the one to go and that you were staying

“ok but i’m not a dog, peter?” “i know, honey, but it’s too dangerous outside. i wouldn’t want you to be at risk.” “i wear a mask?? i follow health protocols?? i’ll be fine??” “you don’t understand–”

oh god he was becoming controlling

you tried not to argue anymore, rather ignoring and pushing past him to proceed to the door

and peter instinctively wrapped an arm around your waist and prevented you from walking further

there was a lot of struggling, but you didn’t know he was this strong. literally what the hell.

you tried to scream too but he pretty much threatened you to your core

“let’s talk this out,” he grunts as he secures his grip around you

“the hell? let me go!”

things got more complicated. he did convince you to talk with him (by means of tying your arms and legs to incapacitate you from running and righting)

it was a nightmare. he was really soft and sweet with you, even getting teary eyed after stating, “i only want what’s best for you... for us”

however you could sense the manipulativeness through it despite being making everything else look convincing

“trust me, sweetie, i wouldn’t want to hurt you. it would crush me” “please don’t cry. i’m only protecting you” “people are disgusting, they don’t deserve an angel like you” “don’t worry, i can protect you”

it terrified you to your nerves, sending shivers across your spine

at first you didn’t realize it, but eventually after days of being trapped, you figured he had been grooming you the whole time

he tried to make you dependent of him and somehow he did a fine job. just not enough to completely exploit you

though, it made you question what would have been better in your situation: being conscious of his sly nature with the hope of escaping or being unaware and completely wrapped around his finger whereas letting him continue how greatly he had been caring for you?

[an-american-teen-against-crime]

There’s so many reasons I love Nancy Drew and Nancy Drew games, but i think one thing that makes this fandom experience so amazing is that you literally have a friend group built into the games, that you can make so many headcannons about and like they do spend time together often from what we heard and like the amount I could come up with just off of dialogue??? like amazing. I just feel like the characters are really vivid and like....THE CRAZY FACT WE’VE NEVER SEEN NED BUT I FORGET THAT SOMETIMES idk i just love these characters and their relationships and i just want more and I love creating content about them

[binickandros]

(same anon from the start of this discussion) i love how in depth you got with the answer!! and i 100% agree with you now. of course i would never want 2020!nick and 2020!tom to be exactly like book!nick and book!tom. king's representation of disabilities was already outdated at the time. i just think they should've had the same importance to the plot as they do originally, and tbf, imo they have one of the best dynamics in fiction, which could be deeply explored. i do give the writers some (very very little) credit for kinda making it less ableist (like having nick sign), but they did so wrong from the start (hiring a hearing actor) that everything kinda went downhill from there. and also, nick and tom are not the only inappropriately represented dynamic, like where the hell did stu/fran come from?? how about some more stu&glen?? they made frannie know ASL, wouldn't it make her dynamic with nick more interesting?? idk i'm not very coherent right now. i just loved your answer and had to keep the conversation going lol (and im tired of talking about harold 😔)

Right, I mean it’s an adaptation, so making changes (especially updates) on a 42-year-old work is perfectly fine. Even accepted. Esp with Nick bc p much everything happens inside his head. We’ve gotta make some changes so we know what’s going on with him, what he’s thinking, etc. But that’s the challenge of any book-to-screen adaptation, and if you aren’t prepared to tackle that, you shouldn’t do it! Anyway once again I have a lot to say...

I liked that at least someone knew ASL, but it was so obvious that 1) Henry Zaga can hear and 2) they had no one on set who was deaf or HOH. The scene where the committee is deciding to send spies is the worst example. First of all, Glen, who’s leading the discussion, is BEHIND Nick. So Nick doesn’t catch a single word of what he’s saying. Secondly, at one point Nick got up and walked away, with his back to the room. So he missed that entire exchange. If I remember correctly, Larry was sort of behind Nick too. Or maybe in front of him w his back to him? Either way, seated so that Nick couldn’t read his lips. I kept pausing to bitch about it to my mom bc it was so gd annoying.

Obvs Rob Lowe is a hearing actor as well, but he made an effort to like turn ppl’s faces toward him or crane his neck to try to see their faces. He actively tried to follow conversations the way a deaf lipreader might. Some of that could be Henry Zaga’s choices, but a director’s job is to direct, and a writer’s job is to include (at least some) stage direction.

I know that Frannie wasn’t meant to be fluent in ASL, but the fact that she translated what she was saying, but not what anyone else was saying, bugged tf outta me. Also just how Henry Zaga and Odessa Young signed! ASL (all forms of sign language, but that’s the one we’re talking about here) is a 3D language: it’s not just the signs themselves, but also facial expressions and body language. That’s why you can’t directly translate ASL into written English (along w syntax, but that’s outside the scope of this convo), but instead have to “interpret” what’s being signed into written language.

Like I’m very glad they chose to have Nick signing, but just like everything else w him, they didn’t put much effort into it. Part of that could be put on the actor (I have no idea what prep work he did for the role), but like...just based on everything we see onscreen, I seriously doubt he was encouraged to do more than just “learn the signs for these words.”

When they first announced the casting for Fran I was concerned just bc of how much younger than James Marsden Odessa Young is. I think they meant Stu to be a bit younger than James, like maybe late 30s, but...idk she looked like his daughter to me. They didn’t have any romantic chemistry, and the fact that we got no backstory as to how they fell for each other just made that worse. I’m not criticizing Odessa Young here; the poor thing was given nothing to do besides sit around looking wan and pregnant; but like I mentioned in another ask, what do these 2 ppl have in common?! Who knows, bc we literally know nothing about either of them, except that Frannie’s pregnant and Stu’s a widower.

And, yeah, I would’ve loved more Stu and Glen. I’m iffy on how they characterized Glen in some ways. Like when I heard the casting for that I was a hard NO, partially bc Greg Kinnear isn’t old enough, but then they changed the character so that the casting choice worked...I’m just not sure if the character changes worked for me, personally. I did like his death scene better in this one, though. And that he actually got through to Lloyd.

Like we all keep bitching about Nick, bc that was the worst example, but ALL of the “good” characters were seriously under-served here. Where were the prophetic dreams? Where were the groups coming together out on the road? Where were any scenes of them bonding or getting to know each other in Boulder?

I was literally just telling a friend (in the middle of typing this answer) that I think sometimes when people adapt horror (I’m looking at YOU, Kubrik, bc yes The Shining is a gr8 movie, but it’s a dreadful adaptation) they think “it’s horror it’s gotta be scary” and forget that a lot of what makes the best horror is characters. Genre fiction is criticized for being too plot-driven, as opposed to literary fiction being character-driven, and while DUH obviously the plot is hugely important in a novel like The Stand, would you actually give that much of a fuck what happens if you didn’t care about the people involved?

Nick’s death carried so little weight bc they’d diminished the character to a shadow of himself, so it was just like “oh that cute boy with the eye patch died, how sad.” Unlike when I saw the 94 miniseries (before I read the book), and I was screaming at my TV. For all that I can bitch about Game of Thrones (and I can. a lot.), D&D at least knew in the first few seasons to make Ned a character you cared about, make Robb a character you cared about, so that their deaths were as hugely shocking and tragic as in the books.

Am I saying The Stand failed worse than Game of Thrones?! Idk. That’s...saying a lot...I’ll think about it and get back to you. Game of Thrones failed so much more often, and for so many more years...

[cjwallflower]

Marvel Gender Headcanons

because i doubt some of these people are cis

Peter: 

i claim this man for the trans community

he realised he was trans at around present time (15-16 years old)

he knows his family and friends will accept him

he’s still N E R V O U S

but he still wants to be true to his identity

so he wears the trans flag colours!!

Ned obvs catches on, but doesn’t say anything

Tony’s the first one Peter comes out to, bc i’m soft and irondad owns my heart

Tony gets him a spider suit with a binder built in

Peter is absolutely the kind of trans guy who forgets to take off his binder (i’m not projecting what do you mean)

he comes out to his aunt May next, and she breaks out the scissors

the other eventually figure it out, and they accept him immediately

Peter: Hey Clint?

Clint: Yo

Peter: I’m trans

Clint: *takes a gulp of his soda* wig

Peter: ???

they love him though let’s be real

Natasha Punches A Transphobe

someone calls Peter a tr*nny 

Natasha sends them on a one way trip to space :)

Peter absolutely decides to go on T

and he is a handsome!! boy!!

he eventually tells Ned and MJ, and they accept him too

Ned buys him a trans flag

NED BUYS HIM A TRANS FLAG

by the time they’re graduating high school, Peter passes as cis very well

Tony:

i’m claiming Tony as trans too

i promise there’s other gender identities here jdsfhkhsdfkjh

Tony came out in the 80s of all times

we know Howard

it didn’t go over well

Maria didn’t say much about it, but Howard was actively against it

Tony didn’t care at all

he literally snuck out and got a fake ID so he could start on T

Tony was almost 18 at that point, but he still used Howard’s money

just to piss him off

well Howard ended up dying like 3 years later

Maria survived because fuck you

but Tony never ended up getting any surgeries because he ended up getting busy with the company

he just didn’t have time, with all the recovery that goes into it

he’s still on T though!!

mans has tiddies and a beard, the boomers get confused

he tends to keep it more private though

Pepper knows, how could she not?

Pepper is the sole reason Tony survived to adulthood lbr

Peter found out accidentally

Tony got oil on a shirt while fixing one of his machines, and Peter walked in while he had it off

he saw the binder and boyyy was that a surprise

but it totally explained how Tony already knew so much about supporting Peter in his transition

the problem with being an ADHD workaholic?? 

hyperfocusing

when Tony hyperfocuses, he forgets to take off his binder

Jarvis: Sir, you need to take off your binder

Tony: Gimme like five more minutes, I need to finish this

Jarvis: Sir, it’s been 38 hours??

Tony: *already moving onto the next task* What’s your point?

his ribs are so fucked

Pepper and Peter remind him too

my boy is a mess

Thor:

this is solely because my nb loml claimed thor as nb and it’s super fucking valid

i love you babe 🥺

so Thor learned about different genders from Loki

and also from Peter tbh

but Thor LOVED the idea of being in between

it just made him really happy!!

he started using those labels a lot, even though he didn’t know much about what they meant

being on Earth more, he started to learn more about them

mostly because they replaced cops at pride (Peter’s idea)

so Thor decided to learn more

he knew he liked boys, that wasn’t uncommon on Asgard

gender expression was very open, but that blurred the lines a lot for him

when he got to non-binary, it clicked

“oh that sounds like me”

“THATS ME”

he was excited he’d figured it out

his immediate instinct?

he went to tell Loki

the only problem was Loki was asleep

“LOKI LOKI LOKI-”

“what do you wANT-”

“I’M NON-LIBRARY!!”

“WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN-”

it took like ten minutes for Loki to figure out what he meant

Loki was tired give him a break

he just kinda pushed Thor’s face away and went back to sleep

they talked about it again in the morning

after Loki got some coffee he was more receptive

“I accept you, just please stop waking me up at 2 am”

Thor’s just trying his best

he doesn’t know how to be non-binary though

(there is no right way to be enby though)

so Loki tried a few example sentences using they/them pronouns

Thor LOVED it

so now Thor wanted to use they/them pronouns

Loki isn’t a brain cell by any means

but he sure feels like one sometimes

and he’s tired of it

ANYWAYS

Thor announced it to everyone they saw

some people heard it multiple times

“GUYS I’M NON-BINARY!! :D”

they were happy for their thude

and Thor wore an enby flag to their first pride!!

now the protector of the lesbians says non-library rights

Loki:

Loki basically always knew he was genderfluid

it just seemed really obvious to him?

he realised he wasn’t cis when he was 7

he transformed into a girl for fun 

and she was like “oh i like this-”

so she experimented with that

and she fucking loved all of them

so she turned back into a boy and went to Frigga

that’s how he found out about the word genderfluid

so he basically just grew up shapeshifting as much as he wanted

when they eventually went to earth, Loki couldn’t shapeshift as much

after he was redeemed, he still needed to be recognisable so they wouldn’t think he was to pull a fast one on them

he was uncomfy 

Loki stays in his room a lot

he just really doesn’t wanna deal with it

he still shapeshifts in private!

Thor ends up being the one to catch on

but he kinda knows that Loki won’t talk to him

so he sends in the spider child!

Loki and Peter have a pretty close bond

so on one of the nights they hang out, it’s a she/her day

and Loki just kinda snapped and went on a bit of a rant

and she ended up coming out to Peter

Loki totally didn’t end up crying what do you mean

she just needs a hug

obvs Peter was accepting

he gave her that hug don’t worry

this was all on a rooftop eating bad street food jhshkfhjfkhkd

he did ask if he could tell the others, and Loki reluctantly agreed

yeah, the others felt kinda bad

so they ended up compromising!!

Loki could shapeshift, but not into other people 

and she could wear whatever she wanted

they also gave her bracelets so she could express her pronouns

its a long road

and it takes a long time to build trust

but Loki really does appreciate Thor and Peter’s efforts

Bucky:

trans enby rights. send tweet

let’s jump back to 1930s

Bucky was transitioning before the war

he had the surgeries and was on T

Steve was the only one who really knew 

it was right when HRT was starting to become a thing

he was one of the first people to try it

and it worked pretty well!

Bucky passed easily after ~2 years on T

but then he died

RIP Bucky :(

when he comes back as a Hydra agent, they use T supplements to make his body stronger

“Jokes on you, I like that shit”

yeah no the others end up rescuing him from there

but Bucky still takes T

everyone is a bit worried about it

they think he’s still under Hydra’s control

Steve has to explain it (with Bucky’s permission)

but Bucky really starts feeling a disconnect with being a male

it’s mostly due to the trauma from Hydra

he knows he’s not a girl anymore

but he hates the idea of being a boy now

so he has no idea what he is

he ends up drawing the parallel between himself and Thor

but Bucky still sees some masculinity in Thor, which confuses him a LOT

Bucky’s always confused lbr

so he ends up finding the term Agender

and he understands it!! and likes it!!

he’s too nervous to tell the others, so he writes sentences using they/them pronouns

“Their name is Bucky Barnes”

“Bucky is tired, they need a nap”

“Bucky’s best friend is Steve. They’ve known Steve since the beginning”

Bucky is WAY happier with they/them pronouns

the problem is they don’t know how to communicate that

even to Steve, they’re just nervous

Steve ends up finding the paper, which now has over 100 sentences

so the next time they’re alone, Steve brings it up, and after a little bit of avoiding answering, Bucky tells him about it

Steve is super accepting 🥺

“Do you want me to tell the others for you?”

“Yes please, I have no idea what I’m doing-”

“I don’t think any of us do”

so Steve lets the others know, and they start using they/them pronouns

Bucky’s IMMEDIATELY so much happier

i just think they’re neat-

MJ:

MJ isn’t cis, fuck you

MJ is a demigirl

and no one even figured it out for the longest time

she kinda groups herself on the more non-binary side

Peter finds out because someone calls her by they/them pronouns

“MJ?? Are you?? Non-binary??”

“Nope”

“Are you still a girl??” 

“Nope”

after like 20 mins Peter figures it out

and boy is he confused

“Why didn’t you just say it?”

“I couldn’t. Gotta keep ‘em on their toes”

“Who??”

“:)”

the M in MJ stands for mystery

anyways!!

she switches from lesbian to the term Trixic (NBLW)

MJ goes to pride with Peter and Ned that year

MJ gets a girlfriend there!!

she comes out to her girlfriend upfront. she doesn’t feel like waiting

yeah she gets intense

she gets it from her moms

who can blame her

MJ sometimes wears a binder

she wore one on the first day of school, because Peter was nervous about being out (he’d come out over the summer)

MJ will punch transphobes and homophobes

even just for fun tbh

but she won’t do it immediately

she heard someone make a comment about Ned and his boyfriend and waited a few days

and then came out of nowhere

B O N K

the douchebag kinda knew why though 

in conclusion, MJ is elite

[beifongsss]

for the fickle [p.p.]

Pairing: Peter Parker x reader

Summary: You’ve always been there for Peter but you’re tired of always listening to him pine over MJ after what happened the night of homecoming.

reader is basically MJ during ffh!

Word Count: 8.8k (i’m so sorry the ending is rushed)

WARNING: ffh spoilers! proceed with caution!

this fic was inspired by reese lansangan’s song For the Fickle which I thought was super soft :( I def recommend listening to it throughout this!

here is my masterlist!!

~

You walked down the hall, on your way back to the gym. You shook your hands out, getting rid of the water droplets on your hands. Of course the bathroom had ran out of paper towels. 

You were knocked down as you turned the corner, a panting Peter Parker propping himself up on his hands as he stared down at you, causing you to blush.

“(Y/N),” Peter whispered. “I’m sorry I have to go.”

“Peter! What do you mean? It’s homecoming,” you exclaimed as he quickly helped you up. “What about Liz?”

Peter quickly pressed a kiss to your forehead before smiling softly. “You look amazing. I hope you know that.”

You stood there in shock at his words as he ran off, taking off his tie before bolting out the door. You continued on your way, arriving back at the gym, grabbing your purse and saying a quick goodbye to MJ before waving to Liz, who looked a little lost due to her absent date. 

The time on your phone read 11:23 pm as you walked home, but you weren’t too concerned. The neighborhood you lived in was remotely safe and if anything happened, you had your trusty pocket knife. Plus, Spider-Man was known to lurk around sometimes so you knew you’d be safe. 

You made it home without incident and proceeded to get ready for bed. You played your music, knowing that your parents wouldn’t be home for a while as they often worked late nights in the lab that employed them. One hot shower and a leftover slice of pizza later, you sat at your desk, removing any traces of makeup that were left on your face after your shower. 

Your music was blasting, not too loud but loud enough for you to miss the tap on your window The tap came again, slightly louder, and you lowered your volume before standing. Grabbing your trusty pocket knife, you crept over to the window, flinging back the curtains to reveal-

“Spider-Man?” you asked, confused. It was then that you noticed him clutching his side, causing you to open your window an help him inside. His breathing was ragged and he was shivering as you propped him onto your bed. 

“T-take it off,” he rasped, causing you to furrow your eye brows. “The mask, take it off.”

You hesitantly rolled up his mask, exposing his bloodied lip and freckled nose before revealing a curly head of hair. You gasped at his appearance. Spider-Man was no older than fifteen. He was a high school student. He was your age. He was Peter Parker.

Gathering all available first aid supplies from your bathroom, you proceeded to clean Peter up. It was a long, silent process and once you were finished, you tucked him in under your covers. 

“I’m sorry,” Peter whispered as you came back into your room. “I’m sorry for keeping this from you and for leaving you at homecoming and for-”

“Peter,” you said softly, interrupting him. “You don’t have to apologize for anything.”

Wordlessly, Peter lifted your covers and you crept in next to him. He wrapped his arms around you and buried his face into your neck. You stroked his hair as he held you tighter, trying to forget the events of that night. 

“(Y/N),” Peter spoke softly looking up at you. You looked down, meeting his eyes. They were full of unshed tears, making them sparkle and look beautiful even though he was hurting. “I’m sorry.”

“You really have to stop apologizing,” you said just as softly. A comfortable silence took over the room as you both stared at each other. You were lost in his honey brown eyes, the tears subsiding with every passing minute. 

“I love you,” Peter whispered, taking you by surprise. “I know we’re only fifteen and haven’t even lived our lives but the one thing I’m sure of is that I am in love with you.”

Your eyes widened at Peter’s words and you stuttered over your words as you replied. “I-I love y-you too Pete. I always have.”

Silence ensued once again as Peter leaned up, capturing your lips in a soft kiss. You kissed back just as softly before Peter deepened the kiss slightly, arms tightening around you in desperation as you responded in kind. 

“I’ll always love you (Y/N/N),” Peter whispered a few minutes later, both your lips swollen from the kisses you had shared. “Always.”

~

“What’s up losers,” MJ greeted as she sat next to you in the cafeteria. 

“Hey MJ,” you greeted, resting your head on her shoulder.

“Hey!” Ned exclaimed. “We’re not losers.”

MJ snorted before opening her book and reading, making sure to keep it angled towards you, knowing you were following along. After a few pages, you glanced up, noticing Peter’s soft gaze focused on MJ. When he realized he had been caught staring, his expression hardened and he shot you a glare before looking back down at his chemistry homework. 

You sighed softly, catching MJ’s attention. With one glance at Peter, she stood up, dragging you along as she left the cafeteria. 

“You can’t keep doing this (Y/N),” MJ said once you had entered the hallway. “It’s quite literally been years.

You bit your lip knowing that she was right. After the night of homecoming, Peter had become withdrawn. You had attributed the sudden distance to his Spider-Man duties, knowing that they were important and took up a lot of his time. You had tried to talk to him a few times and he always stuttered out excuses before darting away. Eventually, he began ignoring you altogether, pretending that you didn’t exist even though you were part of his friend group. 

And the supposed love of his life you though bitterly to yourself. Soon after, The Snap and The Blip happened and seeing as how you were part of the 50% of the population that got snapped away, you were still in high school. Along the way, you had noticed that the soft stare that had been directed at you on homecoming night was now directed at MJ.

MJ had told you that you were crazy and that Peter quite obviously loved you and that even if he had feelings for her, she didn’t like him like that anyways. You believed MJ but you still couldn’t help the way your heart dropped when you noticed the glances. 

“Cheer up loser,” MJ continued. “We’re leaving on that trip soon anyways. You’ll have plenty of time to mope over dorky Peter Parker when we get back.”

You nodded, knowing she was right. Pleased with your answer, MJ grabbed your arm and began leading you towards the door.

“MJ, where are we going? We have chem next,” you exclaimed, noticing the smirk on MJ’s face.

“I think ice cream is more fun than chem. Don’t you?”

~

You huffed slightly, struggling to place your carry-on in the space above your seat. You were relieved when you felt someone take your suitcase from your hands, placing it into the overhead bin with ease. You turned around, surprised to find Brad Davis standing behind you.

“Thanks,” you breathed out, still slightly worked up from your previous attempts with your suitcase. “I don’t think I would’ve ever gotten it up there.”

“It was no problem,” Brad replied smoothly. “It’d be a crime to not help a pretty girl like you.”

You stared at him, a smile spreading across your face as you felt your face heat up. You both stood there for a minute before Ned came up behind Brad.

“Peter! Peter!” Ned exclaimed, trying to make his way over to his best friend. In his attempt, he managed to bump into Brad, who in turn bumped into you, causing you to stumble back and fall. You let out a small ‘oof’ when you landed, feeling an arm wrap around your waist to keep you from falling. 

You flushed when you made eye contact with a pair of bright brown eyes. You avoided Peter’s gaze, looking everywhere except him as Brad panicked, apologizing for knocking you over. 

“Nice catch Parker,” Brad spoke, holding out his hand to help you get out of Peter’s lap.

“Yeah, thanks,” you muttered, grabbing Brad’s hand. He pulled you up, pulling a little too hard and causing you to bump into him. You both cleared your throats and you blushed before ducking your head and darting off to your seat. Peter and Brad both gazed after you. 

“I can’t believe you let her go Parker,” Brad said after a few seconds. “Everyone was rooting for you two to end up together.”

Peter couldn’t help but glare at Brad as he walked off. Ned settled into his seat next to Peter and spoke quietly. “He’s right Peter. We thought you guys were gonna end up together but then you started ignoring her. What happened?”

Peter groaned, running a hand down his face. “I know Ned! I know I messed up okay.” He lowered his voice, leaning in a and continuing in a whisper. “But she found out I was Spider-Man and I couldn’t let her get hurt because of that.”

Ned rolled his eyes before looking at you. You were sitting next to MJ, head leaning back against your seat and eyes closed as you listened to your headphones. “I bet if you sat next to her you’d finally be able to talk it out.”

Peter sighed, closing his eyes at Ned’s words. “There’s no way she’d willingly sit next to me.”

Ned stood up abruptly, startling Peter and heading towards you. 

“Mr. Harrington!” Ned called out. The teacher in question turned around immediately. “I tend to get motion sick on planes so I was wondering if I could switch seats with (Y/N). She’s seated right under the air conditioning and that usually helps me relax.”

“Ned,” Peter hissed. “What are you doing?”

Ned sent him a wink before turning back to Mr. Harrington.

“Oh dear,” Mr. Harrington replied, a little too concerned about the situation. “Let’s see. Ned why don’t you actually switch with Brad? He’s also under the air conditioning and close to the bathroom, just in case. Brad, since your suitcase is close to the back I don’t want you moving too far. Oh I don’t want to wake (Y/N) up. How about you take MJ’s seat? MJ you can sit next to Peter.”

Ned shot Peter an apologetic look as he took Brad’s seat next to Betty Brant. Brad slipped into MJ’s seat as MJ made her way over to Peter, her eyes never leaving her book. 

“Hey loser,” she greeted Peter, sitting down. Peter glanced over at you, eyes still closed, your head resting on Brad’s shoulder. You were asleep. He let out a loud groan before hitting his head on the seat in front of him.

“Next time,” MJ spoke, turning her book’s page. “Don’t make it complicated and just go up to her and apologize.”

~

The plane ride was long. Way too long. 

Halfway through, you had woken up, slightly confused as to why Brad was next to you instead of MJ. Eventually, you and Brad started watching Netflix thanks to the dual headphone adapter that he luckily had. 

Peter was frustrated just watching you guys and the snide comments from MJ didn’t help the situation at all. You looked like you were enjoying yourself and for the first time in a while, fear and panic overtook Peter’s mind as he realized that there was a chance that you liked Brad. 

He fidgeted in his seat, fingernails digging into his palms as he heard you giggle at some joke Brad had made. MJ had fallen asleep a few minutes ago and Ned was too busy talking to Betty. With no distractions, Peter found himself glancing over at you way too often.

“Stop staring. You look like a creep,” MJ mumbled, opening one eyelid. Peter flushed, knowing she had caught him in the act. “Seriously Parker what you did was stupid.”

MJ closed her eye again as Peter hung his head. She continued, “Pulling away from her after confessing that you love her was a bitch move. You know that she thinks that you like me?”

Peter snorted involuntarily at MJ’s words. “No offense MJ but I don’t think I could ever like you. Not as long as she’s in my life.”

MJ opened her eyes, making a disgusted face at the longing look Peter was giving you. “Woman up and tell her that you still feel the same way. I know she still does. Now if you don’t mind please stop moping, I’m gonna sleep.”

Within a few minutes, MJ was knocked out, snoring softly and leaving Peter to mull over her words. 

~

Venice was beautiful. 

The sights were amazing and the large canal that ran through the city only made it even more charming. You were walking alone for the most part. Ned was apparently with Betty now and MJ was nowhere to be seen. 

“Hey,” Brad spoke, coming up behind you. You smiled in response, too lost in your awe of the city to answer him. “I was wondering if you wanted to go on a gondola ride with me?”

You noticed Betty and Ned getting into a gondola of their own out of the corner of your eye before turning back to Brad. “Sure! It sounds like fun.”

Brad beamed, leading you over to the dock and stepping into the small boat before holding his hand out to help you.

“What a gentleman,” you mused, tucking your hair behind your ear. 

“Thank you, I try,” Brad chuckled, sitting down next to you. The two of you talked about everything and nothing as the gondola made its way down the canal. You couldn’t help but feel a bit frightened at how easy it was to be with Brad. He was respectful, charming, and funny. Plus, he wasn’t too hard on the eyes. 

Your stomach turned as Brad observed the buildings along the canal. It was silent for once and you couldn’t help but admire his profile in the sunlight. He turned back around and caught your gaze, smiling at you. 

“Would you mind if I held your hand?” Brad asked quietly. The question took you by surprise, he always seemed so confident and for him to be asking you this only made him seem more charming. Wordlessly, you nodded. 

You tried not to blush as his hand met yours. Conversation resumed, this time more quietly. Brad scooted a bit closer to you, leaning in slightly to meet your eyes whenever you spoke. 

It was relaxing, holding hands with a cute boy as the water in the canal gently rocked you back and forth. You glanced up at some point, making eye contact with Brad and blushing lightly. You couldn’t help but be reminded of that one homecoming night that seemed so far away. As Brad began to lean in slowly, you panicked, images of Peter flashing through your mind and causing you to lean back slightly.

“Brad,” you started, speaking quietly. “Listen, I-”

You were interrupted by a large splash and looked ahead of you to see a column of water rising up from the canal.

“Watch out!” you heard Ned shout, standing slightly as he stared at the water. It continued to rise, taking a humanoid shape as water splashed everywhere. Everyone soon realized that the water entity was malevolent as it began to destroy the buildings surrounding you. Panic and chaos ensued quickly. 

The harsh rocking of the water sent both yours and Ned’s gondola towards the sidewalk, the four of you being sent forwards when the gondola met the cement. Ned reacted quickly, hopping out of the gondola and helping Betty out before turning to you and Brad. He waved at you, causing you to jump into action as well. Brad quickly made his way off the boat, turning to help you out. 

“(Y/N), watch out!” Ned cried, rushing towards you. Another column of water hit the gondola you were on, throwing the boys back and tossing you into the water. 

You broke the surface of the water, gasping desperately for air before being submerged once again. You were a good swimmer but the movement of the creature or whatever it was prohibited you from moving steadily. 

Your lungs burned from the absence of oxygen until all of a sudden, you were staring into the sun. Coughs escaped you as you finally got some air back into your system only for the air to be knocked out of you once more as you noticed you were swinging through the air. 

Bright brown eyes stared at you in concern as you flew through the air before finally landing on the balcony of a building. 

“Are you okay?” Peter asked frantically, eyes searching you for any visible wounds. 

“I’m fine,” you coughed out, taking your hair into your hands and wringing it out. “What is that thing?”

“I-I don’t know,” Peter admitted, still staring at you. “Listen (Y/N), I-”

Peter’s sentence was interrupted by a building tipping over and falling into the canal. You made eye contact, both of you going wide eyed.

“I should probably,” Peter said, gesturing to the thing with his thumb as he looked at you.

“Yeah of course,” you replied. “Pete, stay safe yeah?”

Peter opened his mouth to say something, hesitating for a moment before closing his mouth and nodding before swinging away. 

~

“(Y/N)!” Mr. Harrington yelled as you stepped into the hotel, rushing over to you and grabbing your shoulders. “Where were you?”

You shook your head, making eye contact with MJ as she stood in he corner. “Uh the boat I was on capsized when the thing came out of the water. I got swept up in the current but I was able to swim to the sidewalk and haul myself out.”

“Well thank god you’re safe,” Mr. Harrington said. “I was about to call the police!”

“I’m fine, really,” you replied, smiling slightly even though you knew it looked more like a grimace. “Can I go to my room?”

“What? Oh yes of course. Everyone to your rooms. Get some rest before tomorrow,” Mr. Harrington spoke once more, clapping his hands to hurry you all upstairs. You trudged up the stairs, avoiding the worried look Brad was shooting you. 

Once you had made it to your room, you took a nice, warm shower before settling into the hotel bed. Even though the hotel looked run down, the beds weren’t too bad. The covers were fluffy and the mattress was honestly very soft and comfortable. 

You were halfway through an episode of some random show on Netflix when you heard a soft knock on your door. Warily, you got up and approached the door. You opened it slightly, catching sight of a head of familiar brown curls before opening the door all the way.

“Uh hey,” Peter said softly, fidgeting with his hands as he stood in front of you. He looked nervous, something that made you feel a spark of joy. He deserved to feel slightly uncomfortable, especially after he had ignored you for the past years. “Can I come in?”

Wordlessly, you stepped aside, giving him the chance to trot into your room before you closed the door. 

“How are you?” Peter asked. “I know you’re a good swimmer b-but we have no idea w-what that thing was or what c-could’ve happened if you actually got caught in the current.”

“I’m fine,” you muttered, walking back over to your bed. “Thanks by the way. For saving me.”

Peter’s eyes softened, though you didn’t notice. “It was n-no problem. Of course I s-saved you. How could I not? I’m sorry that it ruined your ride with Brad. How’s that going by the way, being with Brad? He’s p-pretty cool I g-guess-”

“What do you want Peter?” you sighed, interrupting his rambling. “First you ignore me for years and all of a sudden you think you can talk to me like nothing happened? I get you saved my life and I appreciate it, truly, but that doesn’t mean that things will go back to the way they were. In case you forgot, you were the one who pulled away from me.”

Peter flinched at your harsh tone, pulling his sleeves over his hands. “I know, but you have to understand that it wasn’t something I wanted to do.”

“I tried Peter!” you cried out, tears of frustration springing into your eyes. “I tried to talk to you. You just avoided me and then treated me like I never existed in the first place! Do you know how much that hurt?”

“I was hurting too,” Peter said quietly. “But I couldn’t put you at risk because you knew that I was Spider-Man. If the bad guys knew that you knew about Spider-Man they’d use you against me. I didn’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Well you should’ve thought about that before you told me you loved me,” you said, holding your tears at bay.

“(Y/N),” Peter spoke softly.

“Please,” you whispered. “Please leave.”

Peter hesitated, taking one step towards you before changing his mind and heading towards your door. 

“You know, I don’t regret anything I said that night,” Peter said, pausing at the door. “But I am sorry about what I did after.”

Before you could reply, Peter was gone and all you could do was turn the lights off and settle into bed even tough you knew you wouldn’t get any sleep.

~

“Hey loser. What’s with the glasses?” MJ asked as she took the seat across from yours on the bus. You were currently seated alone, a large pair of sunglasses covering your puffy red eyes. You had cried after Peter had left your room, you couldn’t help it. 

You didn’t answer MJ, who simply shrugged and pulled out her book, knowing when to leave you to yourself. You looked out the window as you heard Mr. Harrington climb onto the bus and announce that there had been a change to your trip. 

The event with the water creature had shaken you all up, and parents were concerned. Mr. Harrington however, had convinced them to let you stay on the trip, telling them about how the travel agency had so kindly modified your trip. You were now on your way to Prague. 

The trip there was overall uneventful. The scenery was beautiful and you found yourself staring out the window for most of the trip. The bus stopped along the way, and you all found yourselves at an old, albeit charming, rest stop. 

Most of the group mumbled as they disembarked, anxious to get to a bathroom. You lagged behind them, glancing down at your phone and checking your notifications. Noticing the sudden silence, you looked up finally realizing that you had been standing in the parking lot for a few minutes. 

You started heading towards the building, pausing when you noticed something moving out of the corner of your eye. You turned your head just in time to see Brad disappear through a door that led into another part of the building. Your eyebrows scrunched together in confusion as your feet started moving in the direction of the door.

“Brad! It’s not what you think,” Peter’s panicked voice floated through the air. 

“I think it’s exactly what I think it is,” Brad replied. “And now I have proof to show (Y/N) that you’re not who she think you are.”

“What are you doing?” you asked as you finally stepped through the doorway. A shocked Brad whirled around at the sound of your voice, phone in hand displaying a picture of Peter in his underwear. You glanced at Peter, noticing a tall blonde woman standing behind him. You noticed Peter glancing at the bundle on the table before looking at you. Following his line of sight, you noticed what seemed to be an all black stealth suit lying on the polished surface.

Your lips twitched as the scene before you, noticing just how inappropriate it seemed to appear to Brad. Looking at the stealth suit once again, you realized just how quickly Peter’s secret could get out if Brad focused on the bundle of fabric. 

“Look!” Brad cried, gesturing to Peter and the woman. “Parker really came to Europe just to sleep around, can you believe it?”

“I actually can’t,” you said, crossing your arms in front of you. “First of all, taking pictures of someone in their underwear? That’s pretty messed up. Second of all, even if Peter was sleeping around, it wouldn’t be any of your business now, would it?”

Peter shot you a grateful look as Brad tried to stutter out a response.

“And besides,” you continued. “It wouldn’t be any of my business either. Peter and I aren’t exactly friends.”

Noise started up again outside as the class began to board the bus again. You turned and walked out, not paying attention to Brad scrambling after you. You heard Peter say a quick ‘thank you’ to the tall blonde and some rustling afterwards. You assumed he had stuffed his new suit into his backpack.

You boarded the bus, shooting Brad a glare as he passed your seat. He ducked his head, making his way towards the back instead. 

“Trouble in paradise?” MJ asked, a smirk on her face as she looked at you, then Brad.

You huffed, turning to the window. “Don’t even start.”

MJ chuckles as she took a seat a few rows behind you. The clearing of a throat caught your attention and you turned to see Peter standing in the aisle, gesturing to the seat beside you. “Uh, is this seat taken?”

You shook your head and Peter took that as a silent cue to slide in next to you. Having been expecting to sit alone, you hadn’t bothered to pull down the armrest that separated the two seat, something you regretted as Peter’s arm brushed against yours. 

Even after everything he had put you through, you found your cheeks heating up. You thought back to what he had said at the hotel, that he had been protecting you by pulling away. You understood why he did the things he did, you really did, but that didn't mean that you could just forget the way your heart would clench whenever he went about his day ignoring you. 

You had loved Peter. Heck, you still loved him but you knew you wouldn't be able to forgive him that easily. You proceeded to stare out the window, the scenery taking your breath away, until he hesitantly nudged your shoulder. 

“Thanks,” Peter said meekly. “For standing up to Brad for me.”

You shrugged your shoulders, not looking away from the window. “It was nothing. Besides, we couldn’t have him learning about your secret.”

“Y-yeah,” Peter replied. “That would’ve been pretty bad.”

You snorted, glancing at him just to see him staring at you. His eyes held a soft look and your stomach lurched as you realized it was the same look from the night of homecoming.

“I don’t like MJ,” Peter blurted out, cheeks heating up when he realized what he had said. He paused, decided he might as well just put it out there already. “I like you.”

You pursed your lips, looking back out the window before sighing. “Peter I really don’t want to talk about this right now.”

Peter nodded silently before whispering out a small ‘yeah okay’ and shifting in his seat. Even though your emotions were still jumbled and you had no idea why Peter had chosen now to apologize, you couldn’t help the small smile that spread across your face at his words. 

~

Everyone, even Flash, glanced around at the hotel that had been booked for you. It was magnificent, definitely an upgrade from the one you had stayed in while in Venice. The rooms were huge, and included a balcony that gave you a beautiful view of the city. 

Music played softly as you sifted through your suitcase, looking for the clothes you would be wearing to the opera the next day. Pulling out a semi-formal dress, you nodded contently to yourself before hanging it up near the mirror. 

Your eyebrows furrowed when you hear a ‘thwip’ and you saw Peter swing onto the balcony. He stood on there awkwardly, waiting for your permission to come into your room. You tilted your head slightly, motioning for him to come in. 

He took a seat on your bed, eyes never leaving the floor. He didn’t even look up when you pulled a chair over and sat in front of him. 

“What is it Pete?” you asked quietly. You were tired. You still felt angry but you understood Peter’s reasoning. He had lost so much; his parents, his uncle, Tony. He didn't want to lose anyone else. And you loved him. You felt that it was time to hear him out. 

“I’m sorry,” Peter said after a while. He bit his bottom lip before continuing. “I know that those two words are not enough to make up for everything that I did for these past years and that they’re definitely not enough to make up for what I put you through. But I was scared.”

Peter’s voice cracked at the last words, and your face softened when you noticed the tears in his eyes. 

“You don’t understand,” he continued, furiously wiping his eyes. “I thought it was cool, being Spider-Man. I guess I never realized just how big of a responsibility it was even though everyone kept reminding me. For the longest time I was just the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, but when T-Thanos came along, everything became so much more complicated. I finally got to see firsthand what consequences trying to be a hero brought. I mean, I know I had already lost my parents and B-Ben, but seeing everything Tony gave up for the greater good and seeing just how much Captain America gave up in order to save the world made me realize that nothing good lasts for people like us.”

You stood and walked over to Peter, taking a seat. Silently, you took his hand in yours, intertwining your fingers. 

“You mean so much to me (Y/N/N),” Peter whispered, finally meeting your eyes. “But I’m just a kid and I don’t know what to do. Everyone keeps telling me that I’m supposed to step up and take Tony’s spot, because the world needs a new defender but I don’t think I can. I’m a kid (Y/N).”

Tears were rolling down Peter’s cheeks at this point. “I know that we’re supposed to be heroes, but its hard. A-and I thought that if I pushed you away, I’d never have to deal with the pain of losing you, but ignoring you was worse! I just never wanted to be put in a situation where I could lose you. I-If people knew that you knew about Spidey, they’d use you against me, and they wouldn’t hesitate to do things to you.”

By this point, Peter was full on sobbing. His head was nestled into the crook of your neck and you could feel the hot, fat tears rolling down your skin. You held him tightly, not being able to understand the pain he was feeling. You never would. Minutes passed and you found yourself lying down on the bed, Peter still in your arms. His cries had died down some but he still found himself hiccupping every once in a while. 

“I forgive you,” you said eventually. “What you did hurt, but I understand why you did it. But Pete, please listen to me when I tell you that’s it is most definitely okay if you don’t want to step up and take Tony’s place. You said it yourself, you’re just a kid. No one, not even Spider-Man, should be forced to grow up that quickly.”

“Thank you,” Peter whispered after a few minutes. “And I’m sorry for hurting you.I wish I could say I never meant to, but I was trying to keep you safe.”

You pressed your lips to his forehead, choosing not to reply. 

“I still love you,” Peter admitted unsurely, not knowing how you’d react. 

“I never stopped,” you mumbled. Peter’s arms tightened around you and you laid there, eventually drifting off to sleep.

~

The next day, both you and Peter were in a better mood, and everyone could tell. MJ kept shooting you smug, knowing looks, and not even that could dampen your mood. 

The majority of the day was uneventful, and that evening you all found yourselves on your way to the opera house. You trailed slightly behind the group, eyes wandering around the building a you took in every detail no matter how small.

“Hey,” your staring was interrupted as Brad came up to you, hands in his pockets. “The show’s about to start and I was wondering if you wanted to sit together.”

Your eyes widened and you opened your mouth to reply but you were stopped when a hand intertwined itself with yours. 

“Sorry Brad,” Peter said, a small smile on his face. “She’s actually sitting with me.”

Your cheeks heated up as Brad glanced at your joined hands before stepping backwards. 

“Oh yeah, sure. No problem. I uh, I should be heading in,” Brad said, awkwardly turning away and heading over to the seats. 

You could see MJ looking from Brad to you, the realization of what had just happened hitting her as she burst out into laughter. You began walking towards the seats, only moving a few feet before you felt Peter tug your hand back.

“What’s wrong Pete?” you asked, tilting your head.

“I have to go,” he said quietly, tugging at his shirt collar.

You looked at him, realizing that he must be wearing his suit underneath. “Go. I’ll cover for you.”

Peter leaned forwards, placing a kiss on your forehead before sprinting out of the building. You quietly made your way over to your group, sitting next to MJ.

“Where’s Peter?” Mr. Harrington asked across the row. 

“He wasn’t feeling too good sir,” you replied smoothly. “He’s in the bathroom currently, but he’ll be fine.”

“Oh, okay,” Mr. Harrington replied, glancing behind him at the bathroom door. “I hope he comes out soon.”

“He will,” you reassured your teacher before settling into your chair, going quiet as the lights dimmed and the show started.

Honestly, you couldn’t remember anything from the show. You had fallen asleep five minutes in, your head resting on MJ’s shoulder. The group arrived at the hotel a few hours later, the trip blurry due to the fact that you were still groggy from your nap.

You were close to sleep, curled up on your bed, when Peter came swinging through your window again. He landed harshly, crashing into the bedframe as he tried to regain his balance. You instantly shot out of bed, helping him sit on a chair nearby.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Peter gasped, yanking his mask off. “Just a few bruises, nothing too serious.”

You sighed in relief before noticing the thing in Peter’s hands. “Pete, what is that?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Peter admitted, scratching his head as he looked at the black object.

You carefully took it in your hands, inspecting it as you turned it over in your hands. You saw a lens, but other than that, the object was pretty sleek. 

“I think,” you spoke hesitantly. “I think its a projector of some kind. It looks like pretty advanced tech though. Where did you get this?”

Peter cursed under his breath, taking the projector from you. He ran his hands over it until his nail caught something. It seemed he had pressed a button, and the projector began to shudder. Shocked, Peter dropped it and it hit the floor, turning itself on. 

A giant creature appeared in your room and Peter pulled you towards him for safety. The creature’s arm swung towards the two of you and you braced yourself for the impact only to feel...nothing.

“It’s all fake,” Peter said, staring at the projection. “He’s a liar.”

“Who?” you asked, walking away from Peter and picking up the projector. The illusion disappeared and you tossed the projector back at Peter.

“Mysterio,” he replied as he caught it, placing it on your bed. “He told us that the use of the Infinity Stones against Thanos had caused a rip in the fabric of the universe, allowing him to come here from his world.”

You snorted. “And you believed him?”

“(Y/N), I went to space. I saw many things. You can’t blame me for finding his story believable,” Peter defended himself.

“Okay you’re right. I’m sorry,” you apologized, a smirk on your face. The smirk quickly faded however, when Peter’s eyes suddenly went wide. “What’s wrong Pete?”

“I-I gave them to him,” he whispered in a panic. “O-Oh my god. I gave them to him.”

“Gave what to who Pete?” you asked, slowly approaching him. 

“The glasses! The glasses Mr. Stark gave me. They have access to everything in Stark Industries, including weapons and satellites. And I gave them to Mysterio,” Peter cried, tugging at his hair.

This time, your eyes widened as you took in the severity of the situation. “Oh shit. Okay well its well past midnight now. Go to sleep and tomorrow we can go tell whoever is in charge and get your glasses back.”

“No!” Peter exclaimed. “No us. I’ll go talk to Fury tomorrow. I can’t drag you into this.”

You bit your lip and nodded, knowing he was right. You had no superpowers, what would you do if something happened. “Alright, but please stay safe.”

Peter nodded, stepping closer to you. “I’m gonna go to sleep. You should too.”

You nodded in agreement, walking him to the door. Before leaving, Peter leaned down, eyes flickering to your lips. Your breath caught in your throat and you stood still, unable to move. Carefully, Peter pressed a kiss to the corner of your mouth before moving back and checking the hallway, making sure the coast was clear. 

Satisfied with his observation, he stepped out into the hallway. “Good night (Y/N/N).”

“Good night Peter,” you said, smiling at him. He walked off quickly trying not to be seen in his Spidey suit. Grinning at him once more before he closed his own door, you sighed softly. A sudden movement caught your eye and you turned your head to see MJ standing in her doorway, leaning against the structure with her arms crossed. 

“MJ!” you yelped. “Its not what it looks like.”

“Please,” she scoffed. “I already knew he was Spider-Man. He’s not exactly the best at hiding it.”

You opened your mouth to reply but then thought better of it, instead closing it and nodding in agreement.

“I’m just glad you two finally made up,” she said before turning around and going back into her room. “Good night!”

“Night,” you replied, going back into your room and closing the door. 

Walking further into the room, you stopped suddenly, seeing a figure standing at your bed, projector in hand. They were dressed in a dramatic outfit, their head covered by what looked like a fishbowl. 

“Y’know,” the figure spoke, turning around. “I’ve been looking everywhere for this.”

The fishbowl disappeared, revealing a young, attractive man. He slowly walked towards you, extending his hand. “Quentin Beck. Nice to meet you (Y/N).”

“How do you know my name?” you asked, not moving an inch.

Quentin smiled, putting his hand down. He was surprised that you weren’t scared and he could see why Peter liked you. “Eh, spider-kid mentioned you once or twice.”

You bristled at the mention of Peter. You quickly realized that this was Mysterio, and decided that lying was your best option. “Did he? That’s a surprise, considering he hasn’t talked to me in years.”

Quentin laughed delightedly. “See, that’s a lie. Peter has been talking to me, telling me all about his progress with you. I know you’ve made up, and I also know that you figured out what this is.”

He held up the projector before stepping even closer to you. “I might not be able to take him out without raising suspicion, but I can sure as hell make sure he doesn't go to Fury about this.”

The last thing you remember was being surrounded by a green mist.

~

You woke up in your hotel room. Sitting up, you looked around, trying to figure out what had happened last night. 

Had you really imagined Mysterio in your room?

You slipped out of bed when you saw the time, quickly changing into some jeans and a shirt and slipping on some sneakers before heading into the bathroom. You washed your face and brushed your teeth, quickly fixing your hair before sprinting to your door. You paused briefly, scanning the room before going down to the lobby.

The projector was missing. 

“Ms. (L/N)!” Mr. Harrington exclaimed when you arrived. “Where have you been?”

“Sorry,” you said, walking over to Peter and MJ. “I overslept.”

Mr. Harrington nodded before turning and leading your group out of the hotel. You frowned slightly when you noticed MJ and Peter’s intertwined hands. Walking up to them, you tapped Peter’s shoulders, tilting your head slightly to the side. Understanding you, Peter squeezed MJ’s hand softly before following you. 

“What’s going on?” you asked once you were far enough.

“What do you mean?” Peter asked.

“Are you and MJ a thing?” you asked, confused. 

Peter laughed. “Yeah, yeah we are. Listen (Y/N) everything I told you before, I lied. I do like MJ. I don't actually love you.”

You looked at him strangely. “Oh okay, Thank god, that would’ve been awkward. We’ve been friends for so long I can’t see you that way.”

You chuckled, pretending not to notice the way Peter’s eyes widened. You began walking. “So what are you gonna do about Mysterio?”

“Nothing,” Peter replied quickly. “I’m gonna try and focus on my relationship with MJ right now. I’m gonna hold off on going to Fury.”

“Well you said he had called you right?” you asked. He nodded. “Well just forward me the number and I’ll call him.”

“Why would you do that?” Peter asked. 

“Because I know exactly what’s happening right now and I know that you have to be stopped,” you replied. 

You stood still as the scenery around you faded away. In front of you stood Quentin, who was clapping slowly as he walked up to you. 

“When did you know?” he asked, a smile appearing on his face.

“Before I left the hotel room,” you replied. “The projector was gone. And Mr. Harrington has never referred to me as ‘Ms. (L/N)’.”

Quentin nodded, stroking his chin in thought. “You’re smart.”

You glared at him in disbelief. 

“No really! You are,” Quentin exclaimed. “Poor Spider-Man couldn’t break out of my projections quick enough. Shame, kid’s probably dead now. Hit by a train.”

You didn’t react. You knew that’s what he wanted; for you to cry, scream, anything. Instead, you stood there silently, looking at him expectantly. “If he’s dead then why am I still here.”

“Oh you’re good,” Quentin said. “Real good. I expected some kind of emotional breakdown from you. Are you a hero too? You seem too well composed to be an average person.”

“Nope, no powers,” you replied. “Just good with emotions, I guess.”

“Okay, well to answer your question,” Quentin continued. “You’re still here because we both know he’s not dead. I said that to try and get you to break but he’s enhanced. He’s probably badly injured, sure, but not dead. Plus, he knows I have you. He’ll follow us wherever we go just to get you back.”

“First of all, what makes you think I won’t escape? Second of all, he won't follow us.” you said.

“You’re smart, but not smart enough,” Quentin said, striding over to you. “As for Peter, he’ll come. He loves you. I know young love when I see it.”

Quentin said the last part with disgust, causing you to smirk. “Aww did someone hurt big, bad Quentin?”

You gasped as Quentin grasped your jaw tightly. “Shut it. Just because I need you alive doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you.”

Your eyes never left his as he spoke, and your smirk never left your face. He let you go, throwing you to the side harshly. 

“What a shame,” he spoke, picking up a crowbar. “Under different circumstances you could’ve been such a wonderful asset to my...mission.”

Without giving you a chance to reply, Quentin spun around, swinging the crowbar and effectively knocking you out. 

“Now,” he spoke, standing over your body. “On to London.”

~

Peter was having a pretty shitty day. First, he woke up to find you missing, but brushed it off and labelled it as bad timing. Secondly, he had gone to Fury with his new information, only to find out that he had been manipulated by Mysterio. 

Oh and of course he couldn’t ignore the fact that he had gotten hit by a truck. 

After waking up somewhere in the Netherlands (he still couldn’t pronounce the name of the town) and contacting Happy, he had broken down. While talking with Happy had helped him, it only reminded him of the conversation he had had with you a few nights ago, causing his heart to clench as he remembered that Mysterio had taken you hostage. 

Out of all the lies that Quentin Beck had fed him, Peter knew that he wasn’t lying when he had told him that he had you. 

And that’s how he found himself designing a new suit, making sure to take every precaution as Happy flew them to London. even though he knew that stopping Mysterio should be his main goal, he couldn’t deny the fact that your safety was his top priority. 

In Peter’s head, the majority of the fight was a blur. He knew that his class was safe, for the most part and he also knew that the city of London was thrown into chaos as Mysterio’s grandest illusion yet appeared. 

The Elemental Fusin illusion had been taken down, but Peter was still faced with a mass of drones as he struggled to get to Beck. Peter grunted as he continuously confronted more drones, eventually making it onto the bridge and using his webs to destroy Mysterio’s fishbowl-like helmet. 

Upon destroying the dome, the scenery around Peter shifted slightly, and he turned to see Beck holding you by your hair. Peter breathed in sharply when he saw you, dried blood on your face but otherwise unharmed. 

“(Y/N),” he muttered, causing Quentin to smile widely. 

“Ah Peter,” he said, sliding the EDITH glasses onto his face. “I thought you were dead.”

“No you didn’t,” you muttered, causing Quentin to frown at you. 

“Ok, no I didn’t,” he admitted. “But you will be. Soon. Listen kid, it’s better if you let me leave. I won’t have to hurt your dear (Y/N).”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Peter said softly, his eyes never leaving you. 

“God I wish you didn’t say that,” Quentin replied, chuckling. “EDITH? Yeah, enable the other drones.”

Peter took a step forward before stopping, multiple drones appearing in front of him ready to fire. Glancing at you once more, Peter took off, jumping and swinging through the sea of drones. 

Pausing slightly, he noticed there was only two drones left and grabbing one, he catapulted over the final one. The drone shot twice, missing both times but managing to hit the other one in Peter’ s hands. Using the last of his webs Peter threw the last one into the side of the bridge, effectively destroying it. 

Pulling his mask off, he turned towards you, only to see both you and Beck on the ground. 

“(Y/N)!,” Peter cried as he rushed towards you. You were holding your side, wincing slightly as you sat up. Across from you was Quentin, doing the same but holding his stomach instead. 

“I’m fine Pete,” you groaned. “It barely got me.”

Satisfied with the fact that you weren’t dying, Peter stood up and made his way over to Beck. 

“You lied to me. I trusted you,” Peter spoke sadly, looking down at Quentin.

“I know,” he replied, coughing slightly. “You’re a good person Peter. Such a weakness. Stark was right you know.”

Glancing at the EDITH glasses, Quentin continued. “You do deserve that.”

Your eyes widened as Peter extended his arm, a gunshot going off as he did. Quentin stood at his side, gun in hand as the Quentin on the floor dissipated. 

“You can't trick me anymore,” Peter stated, plucking the EDITH glasses off Quentin’s face and placing them on his own. Quentin sunk to the ground. “EDITH, turn off the drones!”

Looking around at the destruction surrounding you, you looked at Quentin. “How could you do all this?”

“You’ll see,” Quentin rasped, his breathing shallow. “People tend to believe, and nowadays...they’ll believe anything.”

You shuddered as Quentin’s eyes went dull.

“Is he?” Peter asked quietly. Crawling over to Beck, you checked his pulse before nodding. 

Quentin Beck was dead.

~

You had finally gotten to meet the infamous Nick Fury when Peter insisted on getting your wounds checked out. He had stared you down as they worked on the injury from the drone, impressed by the way you didn’t flinch once. Your head had also been checked out and you had been allowed to leave once they had made sure you didn't have a concussion.

Before leaving, Fury had slipped a card into your hand. “If you ever need a job, feel free to call. We could use people like you around here.”

You had smiled before slipping your hands into Peter’s and following him out. 

Before you knew it, you were back in New York. The trip back had been exhausting, with everyone having been concerned about where you had disappeared to and with MJ demanding to know all the details about what had happened. 

Eventually, you settled back into your routine. The only thing that had changed was your relationship with Peter. After the whole Mysterio debacle, Peter realized that rather than push you away, he’d rather have you close. That had led you to where you were now, getting ready for your date. 

You were dancing around giddily to the music blasting from your speaker, shrieking softly when a knock came from your window. There stood Peter, clad in his Spider-Man suit (without the mask) and smiling amusedly as he watched you. 

Opening your window, you smiled at him, cheeks still red. “Creep.”

He said nothing, instead choosing to pull you to him and place his lips on yours. You sighed softly into the kiss, wrapping your arms around his neck. You stood there for a few minutes, exchanging soft kisses until you were smiling widely. 

“Well hello to you too, Pete,” you said, pulling back and looking into his eyes.

“I love you,” Peter whispered, leaning in and kissing you once more. “So, you ready?”

You giggled delightedly. “I love you too. Where are we off too?”

Peter smiled upon hearing your words. “I was thinking about going for a swing?”

You nodded happily, following him to the window and holding on tightly as he swung. You sailed through the city for a while before landing on the roof a building. Sitting down next to Peter, you placed your head on his shoulder as you took in the view. “It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah you are,” Peter replied looking down at you. You rolled your eyes at his cheesiness before pulling him into another kiss.

The two of you spent the rest of the day there, talking about everything and nothing, exchanging soft kisses, and simply enjoying each others company, happy that you the two of you had finally gotten over your fears and gotten together.

And so there the two of you remained, blissfully unaware of the story that The Daily Bugle had just published.

[takenbyemrys]

Merry Christmas Peachy!!! For @peachy-keener for Parkner Secret Santa event

---

Peter laid his head down on his books. He let out a muffled groan as Ned patted his back. MJ rolled her eyes from across the table. They were trying their best to get a last minute study session in before classes started.

“Come on, loser, it’s english,” MJ said. Peter huffed and sent her a mild glare.

“Says you.” Peter said. “All you ever do is read.”

Ned chuckled. “He’s not wrong MJ. English is so much easier for you than us.”

“Help us Michelle Jones, you’re our only hope.” Peter snickered as he said it, earning an eye roll.

“You’re both massive losers. It’s not that hard. But fine.” She leaned forward and began explaining just where they were wrong. MJ was halfway through her explanation when she was interrupted by Principal Morita walking up to their table. A tall girl followed closely behind him, her arms crossed and a scowl on her face.

“Oh you three will do,” Morita said. “Peter, MJ, Ned, this is our new student, Abbie Keener. Abbie is a junior, but she’s going to be taking a lot of senior classes, so I want you three to show her around.”

With that, he nodded to the four of them and walked out of the library.

MJ snorted. “Okay then.”

Peter, however, jumped up and grinned. He held out his hand to Abbie. “Hi, I’m Peter!”

Abbie raised an eyebrow at his outstretched hand but reluctantly reached out to shake it.

“Nice ta meet ya.” Her southern twang was rich.

“You too, Abbie.” Peter waved to the empty seat next to MJ. “This is MJ, who was oh so graciously helping us not fail English. And this is Ned.”

Abbie nodded to them, but otherwise said nothing.

“It was gracious of me, wasn’t it?” MJ smirked. “Why was I doing it again?”

“Because if you didn’t, we wouldn’t be going to NYU together next year,” Ned said. MJ huffed. “And what would you do without your soulmates?”

“Y’all are soul mates?” Abbie asked, clearly trying to assess the relationship with her eyes.

“Yeah, we’re all platonic soulmates,” Peter explained. He held out his left arm that had two phrases tattooed on it. MJ and Ned held out their wrists as well. “For me, the top one is Ned, because I first met him. Ned and MJ’s first was me too, even though MJ met us at the same time.”

Abbie studied his wrist, where the first phrase said ‘Do you like star wars?’ and the second said ‘Sup Losers.’

“Cool. My Brother’s my platonic.” She held out her left wrist. Peter saw that it said, ‘Hello, little sister.’

“Oh that’s adorable.” Peter grinned. Abbie grinned. Most people thought it was weird that her brother was her soulmate. “So, where are you and your brother from?”

“Tennessee,” Abbie answered easily. “My brother and I moved up here because he started at NYU this semester.”

Peter’s eyes lit up. “Oh cool! Are you planning on going there too?”

“Probably,” Abby explained with a grin. “I think i want to travel first.”

MJ nodded. “Same. Hard debating ditching these losers.”

Ned grabbed his chest, giving her an exaggerated gasp and the ultimate eyes of betrayal before crying out, “You would never!”

“Yeah, sorry MJ.” Peter shrugged. “After the whole ‘soulmate’ thing, you can’t really pretend not to like us.”

“I don’t know,” Abbie teased. “I’ll ditch my brother and you ditch them, and we can hit Europe.”

“The three of them can look after each other.” MJ agreed. She paused, looking between the boys. “Well, maybe.”

“Oh my god,” Peter gasped. “Ned, it finally happened. MJ found someone else who’ll be just as mean to us.”

He then wailed, burying his head in Ned’s shoulder. Ned, for his part, hugged Peter close and pretended to weep as well.

MJ stood up, both annoyed and affectionate. “Alright losers. Come on. We have class.”

“Ugh, I don’t want to go to class,” Peter groaned. Despite his dramatics, he looked to their new friend. “Abbie what classes do you have?”

Abbie pulled a schedule out of her backpack and handed it to them. It took only a few seconds for all three to look back up at her eagerly.

“Sweet!” Peter said. “You have most of your classes with us.” After he finished, he grabbed Ned and led the way out of the library. MJ snorted and pulled Abbie after her.

“Alright, Keener,” she said. “Looks like we’re adopting you.” --------

After that, Abbie easily merges into their friend group. She shares almost every class with at least one of them. This gives them all plenty of time together (especially she and Peter) and allows her to open up more. Her and MJ get on like a house on fire, making Peter and Ned sometimes wonder how they aren’t platonic soulmates, or maybe even romantic soulmates. Regardless, there’s nothing between them like that and they just all click. Abbie ends up invited to movie nights, lunch, and the occasional Aunt May sponsored thai food. She raises an amused eyebrow everytime Peter has to go to his ‘internship’ and everytime he has sprint out right after school.

It happened one day when Peter offered to walk Abbie home. He was rambling on and on about nanotechnology when it hit her. It hit her so hard she stopped walking, gaping at Peter.

“Abs?” He asked, eyebrows drawing in concern. He reached out and grabbed her shoulder. Abbie jolted out of her trance at his touch.

“Sorry. Just contemplating the inescapable chasm of loss in regards to abandonment.” Abbie pressed her lips together, trying to stop the onslaught of invasive and horrific thoughts. It was only natural. Harley and Peter were soulmates. There was no doubt in her mind that these two idiots would fucking love each other. The only problem was Abbie. They would run away together, and do science, and completely forget about her.

“Fucking mood. Literally my entire existence.” Peter snorted. Abbie raised an eyebrow.

“Who abandoned you?” She pried.

“Besides everyone? My parents dumped me on May and my Uncle Ben’s doorstop when I was like nine. Then, Ben died in my arms last year after a robbery. So, i get it. Whatever you got goin on, you’re not alone, and I’m not gonna abandon you. Never will.” Peter gave her a sad, lopsided smile, and Abbie melted. She launched herself at Peter, wrapping her arms around him. Peter gasped as Abbie knocked the wind out of him, but instinctively reciprocated.

“You’re great, ya know that Parker?” Peter shook his head and slung his arm around her. He led her down the street.

“I’m something. So, I shared. Who abandoned you?” Peter squeezed her shoulder. “Besides everyone?” Abbie smirked. “Dad left when I was a baby, but mom did the emotional abandonment thing. All I ever had was Harley.” Abbie shrugged. “Hopefully I’ll always have Harley.”

“Well, I’ve never met the mysterious brother whose never at your apartment, but based on everything I know about you and him, he wouldn’t leave you either. I mean he drug you all the way to New York because he refused to leave you at home didn’t he?” Abbie looked up.

“How in all seven hells did you know that?” She asked. Peter shrugged.

“Best guess.” He gave her his best dimples and a wink.

“You’re too smart for your own good Parker. But, I still appreciate it.” Peter stops at the door of her apartment building. “And for the record. I won’t abandon you either.” Peter lit up like a christmas tree. “Now get outta here. I know you have stuff to do.” Abbie winked and sauntered through the door. Peter shook his head, but slipped into the alley next to the building.

---------

“Does he really believe he’s bein’ subtle about the whole Spiderman thing?” Abbie asked one day, watching Peter sprint across the courtyard. MJ rolled her eyes and Ned gaped at her, already trying to find excuses to explain Peter’s behavior.

“Unfortunately.” MJ despaired.

“Ya know. I think it’s time y’all met Harley.” She was still staring after Peter.

“Because?” Ned asked.

“Because I just have a feelin’.” Abbie said as explanation. “We can go meet him now, if you’d like. Then y’all’ll definitely know what I'm talkin’ about.”

MJ shrugged and closed her book. “Might as well. Ned?”

“Why not?” Ned nodded.

Abbie led the duo through New York, stopping at the entrance to a run down garage. “You’re sure he’s here?” Ned asked. Abbie held up her wrist, staring at the invisible string she knew was there.

“Yep. I’m sure. Come on.” Abbie pushed opened the door and led them through the waiting area. Music boomed the minute she opened the door. ACDC almost burst their eardrums. When they reached the garage portion, MJ raised an eyebrow at the sports cars, while Ned was too preoccupied with the state of the art parts strewn around the room. “Yo, Harls!” Abbie yelled over the music, pointing to a car with it’s hood up. They noted the shirtless man leaning over it. He stood up and yelled at the ceiling, turning off the music. He pulled a rag from his pocket and wiped his hands.

When he turned around MJ snorted. Ned grinned.

“Ya’ll must be Abbie’s friends. I’m Harley.” The southern dripped off his lips, sweeter than tea.

“Well, fuck Keener. You had a feeling, huh?” MJ asked. Ned shook his head.

“Just a feelin’.” Abbie answered.

“I’m missing something.” Harley said, his lips twisting into a scowl.

“You’ll find out soon enough.” Ned grinned at him. “I’m Ned, this is MJ.” MJ jerked her head, smirk still dancing on her lips.

“Peter couldn’t make it. But, i’ll bring him by tomorrow, if thats cool?” Abbie asked.

“Yeah, you know that’s cool. So, y’all go to nerd school?” Harley asked.

“The nerdiest.” MJ confirmed.

“Is that the beginnings of a sublight engine?” Ned asked, pointing to a massive pile of parts on a nearby cart.

“Hell yes!” Harley grinned. He began to explain how he was making it. MJ leaned toward Abbie.

“This is the best feelin’ you’ve ever had. And i’m personally upset you didn’t tell me sooner.

“It just hit me a couple weeks ago. There’s no way they aren’t soulmates.” MJ grinned at Abbie, who hip checked her.

“When are you bringing him? I so want to see it.” MJ stared at Ned, a rare soft smile on her face.

“Tomorrow for sure. I wanted to make sure y’all agreed with me. We can do the exact same thing.”

“Do you know what Harley’s soulmark says?” MJ aked. Abbie grinned evily.

“Oh yes. And you won’t want to miss it.” Abbie collapsed on a couch near the wall and watched Ned and Harley nerd out over Star Wars and mechanics.

“Fucking losers.” MJ said fondly, sitting next to Abbie. They stayed for another hour, plotting the lovely demise of Peter Parker into the abyss that was Harley Keener. Ned and Harley kept getting more excited as the moved from engine to engine. MJ pulled Ned away after a while, offering to walk him home. As soon as the door closed, Ned turned to her with a grin.

“MJ. He’s fucking perfect.” Ned vibrated with excitement.

“Intelligence?” MJ asked.

“Off the charts. No way they won’t be on the same level. Also, did you see the abs?” Ned asked.

“You mean the ones literally showing through his shirt? I saw. The honeyed accent is no slouch either. I’m thrilled to see what happens tomorrow.” MJ hugged Ned when they reached his apartment and practically skipped to hers.

-----

“I can’t believe I missed meeting Harley!” Peter groaned.

“We’ll go back today so we can meet him,” Abbie rolled her eyes. Peter lit up, a grin gracing his lips, and his dimples gracing Abbie. After class MJ and Ned led the way to the garage, having a heated debate on MJ’s latest book. Abbie was studiously ignoring Peter as he tried to pry information out of her.

“Come on, you never tell us about him. I’ve been so curious. I mean he’s your platonic soulmate and that’s adorable.” Abbie rolled her eyes at him.

“You’ll meet him in just a minute, Parker. Calm the fuck down.” Abbie bumped his hip against Peter’s. The boy huffed and crossed his arms. MJ opened the door to the shop, and they were once again blasted with ACDC. Peter’s eyebrows jumped in surprise.

Harley was working on the same car when they walked in, but this time, he was under it. Abbie walked up and hit the hood of the car. Harley’s legs jerked as he jumped in surprise.

“Ow! Fuck! Abbie!” Harley rolled out from under the car and jumped up, glaring at his sister. She gave him a sweet smile.

“Sorry Harls. Just letting you know we’re here. Also, you didn’t meet him yesterday. This is Peter.” Abbie flung her arm out, pulling Peter out from behind MJ and Ned. Peter’s eyes widened, following the line of grease smudged on Harley’s neck.

“Oh you. Fuck me.” Peter muttered. Harley grinned and leaned back onto the car. Harley held up his wrist that said ‘Oh you. Fuck me’ in Peter’s notorious chicken scratch.

“Maybe not now, but hopefully soon, darlin’.” Harley smirked as Peter’s eyes widened. MJ and Ned were trying their hardest not to laugh. Peter held up his matching wrist and grinned.

“Well, who'd've thought.” Abbie smirked, grinning between the two who she now thought of as her brothers.

[theusurpersdog]

Do you have examples of sansa thinking about arya in the book? Arya is always thinking about sansa and misses her but sansa seems to forget she have a sister.

I’m just going to ignore the antagonistic undertones of this and answer the question as best I can.

The thing that is most important to understanding how Sansa and Arya think about each other, is to realize they have literally no understanding of what the other is going through. Arya is a bit more aware of Sansa’s situation, because she knows Sansa is trapped in King’s Landing with some of the world’s worst people, but Arya is too young and naive to understand the level of cruelty Sansa experiences. But in A Clash of Kings, Sansa thinks Arya’s safe and home:

By now Arya was safe back in Winterfell, dancing and sewing, playing with Bran and baby Rickon, even riding through the winter town if she liked.

It’s not until Sansa is told that Bran and Rickon are dead and Winterfell has fallen, that Sansa finds out Arya isn’t safe (someone can correct me if I’m wrong cause I’m just going off of memory here, but I think Sansa learns this between her first and second chapter in A Storm of Swords). 

And Sansa does think of Arya many times, often fondly:

He'd owned a sword named Lion's Tooth once, Sansa remembered. Arya had taken it from him and thrown it in a river. I hope Stannis does the same with this one.

This is the first of two times Sansa thinks of Arya throwing Joffrey’s sword in the river, and both times Sansa thinks of it as something she wishes someone else would do. In hindsight, Sansa clearly loves that Arya did that.

 And later in ACOK, Sansa prays for Arya when she’s in the sept before the Battle of the Blackwater.

Sansa also remembers Arya fondly in A Storm of Swords:

It had been so long since she had enjoyed the company of other women, she had almost forgotten how pleasant it could be. Lady Leonette gave her lessons on the high harp, and Lady Janna shared all the choice gossip. Merry Crane always had an amusing story, and little Lady Bulwer reminded her of Arya, though not so fierce.

Sansa is relating this group of women to women she enjoyed being with, and one of them reminds her of Arya. 

Sansa also dreams of having a daughter who looks like her sister:

In Sansa's dreams, her children looked just like the brothers she had lost. Sometimes there was even a girl who looked like Arya.

Sansa’s dreams say a lot about her, because she often dreams of her favorite childhood memories or things she loves and misses; like when she dreams of Lady. And Sansa dreams of being little again, sharing a bed with Arya. And when Sansa builds her snow castle in the Eyrie’s Godswood, she remembers Arya:

She remembered a summer's snow in Winterfell when Arya and Bran had ambushed her as she emerged from the keep one morning. They'd each had a dozen snowballs to hand, and she'd had none. Bran had been perched on the roof of the covered bridge, out of reach, but Sansa had chased Arya through the stables and around the kitchen until both of them were breathless. She might even have caught her, but she'd slipped on some ice. Her sister came back to see if she was hurt. When she said she wasn't, Arya hit her in the face with another snowball, but Sansa grabbed her leg and pulled her down and was rubbing snow in her hair when Jory came along and pulled them apart, laughing.

That is undeniably the happiest Sansa had been since before Ned was taken prisoner, and her mind goes to Arya.

There’s a couple things you need to understand about Sansa and Arya, if you want to really grasp how they think of each other.

Starting with Arya, she thinks of Sansa about twice as much as the reverse, but look at the context:

Sansa would have known who he was, and the fat one too, but Arya had never taken much interest in titles and sigils.

So the singer played for her, so soft and sad that Arya only heard snatches of the words, though the tune was half-familiar. Sansa would know it, I bet. Her sister had known all the songs, and she could even play a little, and sing so sweetly. All I could ever do was shout the words.

Lady Catelyn always wanted her to be like Sansa, to sing and dance and sew and mind her courtesies.

But that was just stupid, like something Sansa might dream.

Arya thinks of Sansa very often, because she puts herself as the polar opposite of her sister; she relates everything back to “Sansa would do this, but I’m going to do the opposite”. These are clearly the thoughts of a younger sibling, who was raised in the shadow of a more successful older sibling. As the quote about singing shows, Arya always felt like she could never be the Lady that her sister was, and instead leaned into her more natural hobbies because she didn’t want to try and fail and would rather do other stuff anyway. 

Arya also thinks about her childhood a lot more than Sansa does, and has a lot of memories of messing with her preppy older sister. This changes a lot in A Storm of Swords, but Arya thinks about her family a lot in A Clash of Kings. She finds comfort in these memories and the times she shared with her family.

Which leads me to Sansa. Unlike Arya, Sansa deals with trauma by avoidance (just another thing she has in common with Ned, but that’s none of my business. . .). It’s completely undeniable that Jeyne Poole was Sansa’s favorite person, someone she viewed as her sister. Yet Sansa doesn’t think about her too often; because to think about her is to be sad for her. It becomes abundantly clear that Sansa grieves this way when she becomes Alayne Stone: 

Alayne loved it here. She felt alive again, for the first since her father...since Lord Eddard Stark had died.

Sansa is so happy as Alayne Stone because Alayne hasn’t experienced anything half so traumatic as Sansa. Alayne has no dead parents, brothers, or sisters, isn’t used and abused for her claim, and cannot be attractive to Petyr Baelish. She finds a freedom in being someone else because it is the highest manifestation of how she grieves. 

Sansa found strength in the members of her family that were alive, such as how she depended a lot on Lady, or think of Robb to give herself strength. The thought of them all being dead hits her hard:

If Lady was here, I would not be afraid. Lady was dead, though; Robb, Bran, Rickon, Arya, her father, her mother, even Septa Mordane. All of them are dead but me. She was alone in the world now.

Sansa doesn’t think of Arya because it’s really really hard for her. The same way Ned’s pov is basically “avoid! avoid! avoid!”, Sansa does everything she can to not think about her family. Not because she doesn’t care, but because she does.

[tibbythetiger]

Diner Food and Howard Hall

Peter still looked pretty under the cheap overhead lighting the diner offered, he looked more human here than he had under the moonlight; Harley however was still slightly intimidated by the boy who was currently buttering his toast across from him. Peter looked up his warm brown eyes smiling,

“You gonna eat or just stare at me?” he asked Harley flushed and looked down at his own plate, honestly he didn’t even remember ordering the pancakes that were placed before him, he must have been too distracted by the boy in front of him to focus on the menu, or ordering apparently. Harley glanced up to see Peter was already looking at him, a small bemused smile tugging at his kiss swollen pink lips.

It had taken them a while to reach the diner, they’d gotten distracted, stumbling and stopping under street lights to kiss. Peter was more adventurous than Harley, and just the idea of what Peter must be like behind closed doors made Harley cough and look away briefly.

“Did you have friends at the party?” Peter asked as he shoved a forkful of hashbrowns into his mouth, Harley shrugs as he pours syrup on his stack of pancakes, he’s trying to play it cool, though he’s not sure. He knows he’s a goner already, beside if the past twenty minutes were anything to go by, Peter at the very least was attracted to Harley enough to know his name and recognize him outside of class. There was also the kissing, the kissing was a big clue in that Peter, might, just possibly be into Harley as well.

“Not really, I’m honestly not even sure how I got there,” Peter laughs, his crooked little nose scrunching up, Harley’s heart melts and he wants to curse whatever God there is because it’s really not fair that Peter looks this good at this late in the night, or early in the morning? Harley has honestly lost all sense of time at this point, it’s probably close to bar close, if not after if the other people stumbling into the diner are anything to go off of.

“I get that,” Peter says “Sometimes you’re dragged to the party, and sometimes you just sort of find yourself at a party. Did you know anyone there? I don’t really see you at parties very often,” Peter said as he looked back down at his plate, Harley’s head shot up. He was looking for him at parties? Or at least noticed he wasn’t at them? He also wasn’t wrong, parties were nice sometimes, but going to too many made Harley’s skin crawl. He could only deal with large groups of people so often and parties were often too tightly packed for him to feel too comfortable.

“Uh, no I don’t think so. My uh, roommate needed my room so I was just walking around campus.” Harley wants to kick himself as soon as he says it, he knows it sounds sad and kinda pathetic; but Peter laughs and the sound is so sweet that Harley only smiles a little embarrassed at the curly-haired boy.

“I don’t usually have that problem, my roommate’s girlfriend goes to a different school so they usually just meet up there.” Harley nods unsure of how exactly to keep the conversation going, “You’re lucky you didn’t walk down a little farther, I hear the frat was throwing a rager,” Peter rolls his eyes at the words, and even Harley wrinkles his nose in distaste.

“Frat parties are either a night you will never remember or a night you will never forget.” Harley says as he takes a bite of his food. Peter nods,

“Yeah, they’re always an experience. My friend Mj hates them, thinks frats in general are just a show of the hetenormative constraints of society or whatever,” he waves his hand, but there’s a small smile on his face as he speaks of his friend.

“Back in my hometown our only options were frat -like parties,” Harley offers,

“Where are you originally from?” Peter asks, as he twirls the straw in his chocolate milk. (He ordered chocolate milk, how adorable is that?)

“Rose Hill, Tennessee,” Harley replies, Peter’s eyes twinkle.

“Country boy, I love you,” he leans forward before he sticks out his tongue “Blah,” Harley tries to keep a straight face, but he’s definitely still buzzed from whatever he’d had to drink at the party and being around Peter is an intoxicant in it’s own right.

“Oh my god, here I was; thinking you were this cool, cute guy when you’re obviously a huge dork.” Peter’s mouth quirks into a smirk

“Cool and cute huh?” he asks, and Harley flushes looking down at his plate,

“Who quotes vines on a first date?” he asks, as he looks back up at Peter, Peter whose smudged makeup is glistening under the overhead lighting and has a full grin across his precious little face.

“A first date huh? You’re a smooth one there Keener,” Peter says, his fist coming to rest against his cheek, smushing half of his face up. It’s too much to look at that Harley thinks if this boy literally gets any cuter, and softer, he’s going to have a heart attack and die.

“I-uh. I didn’t, it's only a date if you want it to be a date.” he says finally, as he looks down at his plate again, holding his breath until Peter’s pale hand reaches over and takes his hand in his.

“I’d really like this to be a date,” Harley finds himself grinning back, a little more shyly than Peter, but still grinning. Peter stifles a yawn on the back of his hand, and pulls out his phone

“As fun as this has been though, I do think we should sleep eventually, we do have a paper due on Monday.” Peter says, shaking his phone at Harley, he catches a glimpse of the time and the several notifications on Peter’s phone.

“How the hell is already four am?” Harley asks, as he digs his wallet out of his back pocket, pausing awkwardly for a second until he sees Peter pull out his own wallet. Good, he wasn’t sure if was supposed to be paying for them both and he didn’t want to make it awkward because he didn’t exactly have a lot of cash on him at the moment. They left their money on the table and got out of their seats, there was a hint of sunlight beginning to peak over the tips of the trees.

Peter clasped his hand

“Do you wanna walk back to campus together?” he asked, Harley thought it was kinda silly question, why wouldn’t they walk back together, they’d walked here together, but he nodded.

“Yeah, hopefully my roommate’s kicked whoever out of his bed by now.”

“What are you going to do if he hasn’t?” Peter asks, as the slowly amble back the way they had come earlier, it felt different holding Peter’s hand in the not-quite sunlight versus the moonlight. Peter looked softer now, and Harley was sure it was because the buzz of the night was wearing off and he was tired. If he had a sleep schedule even slightly like Harley’s he probably didn’t sleep much on the regular.

“Probably just nap in the hallway, or the library.” he says, it was what he usually did. Usually he’d spend the whole night in the library, then go to a diner and work on homework until noon, when his roommate was sure to be up and awake. Tonight though, it had been so sudden that Harley was lucky that he had even grabbed his phone and wallet, let alone think to grab textbooks and head to the library; it was mostly why he’d been walking aimlessly on campus on a Friday night.

“That’s dumb, my roommate Ned is gone for the weekend, you can just sleep in my dorm.” Peter says, as he swings their arms, Harley can feel his heart quicken in his chest. But he merely nods

“You don’t have-”

“No c’mon. Sleeping in the hallway is kinda sad honestly. You can sleep in my dorm, it’s not a big deal.” Harley’s sure that it probably isn’t a huge deal, but he’s dumb and he wants to overthink that maybe Peter just doesn’t want to let the night end just yet. Or maybe he’s just a really nice guy who doesn’t want to have him sleep in the hallway of his dorm floor, which he knows is kinda sad.

“What hall are you in?” Harley asks, as they walk past one of the more rundown dorm buildings, Peter flushes then and looks away. It’s the first time the entire time they’ve been together that Peter has looked embarrassed,

“I live in Howard Hall,” Harley tries not to make it a huge deal, but everyone at their school knows that Howard Hall is the nicest dorm building on campus and probably in the state if they’re honest. Given it was named after the Howard Stark, it wasn’t that surprising, it was also almost impossible to get into the hall. They usually on reserved it for students who were legacy or really well off; it definitely wasn’t where Harley would have put Peter.

“Oh, that’s neat.” Harley says, and he feels so dumb he wants to kick himself, he must sound like such an ass.

“It’s not as nice as everyone makes it out to be, and honestly I’m only there because my Dad insisted.” Harley furrows his brow,

“Your dad?” he asks, he’s sure that if Peter tells him his Dad’s name he won’t recognize it, because he doesn’t know anyone on this side of the country, but still, it can’t hurt to ask.

“Uh yeah, uh Tony Stark,” Peter mumbles, Harley nods meanwhile he’s really glad that Peter’s not walking him to his dorm because that would be too embarrassing to face. Tony Stark’s son in Pound Hall? The idea alone is a scandal,

“Peter Stark,” Harley says aloud finding the words sit a little odd on his tongue, Peter makes a face.

“I still go by my other last name, Parker,” that name does ring a slight bell in Harley’s head but he doesn’t bring it up.

“Parker sounds better than my last name,” he offers, and Peter looks up at him grateful.

“Oh yeah, what’s so bad about Keener?” he supposes that if Peter has been looking for him at parties and knows his first name, it’s not surprising that he knows his last name too; it still makes his little heart skip in delight though.

“It’s just a bit of a joke you know?” he rolls his eyes, as Peter leads them in the opposite direction Harley would normally take to get to his dorm. “Are you keener? You keen?” he asks, Peter rolls his eyes.

“Oh you poor thing,” Peter says gripping onto Harley’s upper arm, Harley’s grateful he’s in for mechanics, because he knows there’s a bit of definition to his arms. He hopes that Peter doesn’t let go of his arm, because he really likes Peter touching him. He really likes Peter, which is dumb because they’ve really only met tonight, and half of that time they were both not sober. “I used to have this guy who would call me Penis Parker,” HArley barked out a laugh, he hadn’t meant to and he feels a little guilty.

“I’m sorry, that’s”

“That’s just high school,” Peter says, as they take another bend, there’s no one out which given the time Harley supposes isn’t that weird. It just seems quieter on upper campus than lower campus, Harley is sure there’s someone passed out in the grass outside his dorm hall, there’s usually at least one; and the group of stoners who like to linger into the early morning.

Howard Hall doesn’t look that different from the rest of the dorm buildings, or any of the other buildings on campus honestly, but the second they enter the dorm hall, Harley can see the difference. The carpet in the hallway is white and plush, fluffier than the carpet in his hallway could have ever been, even when it was put in like eighty years ago. Peter leads him up a flight of stairs, the halls are kinda bare, plain white walls and wood doors. Peter stops in front of one, (2F, Harley tries to remember.) and lets go of Harley’s hand to pull out his keys; after what feels like an eternity, Peter gets the door open peeking his head around.

“It’s a little messy,” Peter says, his face slightly flushed again, Harley wants to lean forward and kiss him but feels awkward to do it and only smiles.

“Honestly who has a clean dorm?” he asks, and Peter lets out a little breath that sort of sounds like a laugh, he turns on the light and grabs Harley’s hand, pulling him in behind him. It’s not really messy, there’s a few t shirts and textbooks on the floor. In Harley’s smaller dorm, it would definitely classify more of mess, but there’s enough space in the room that it doesn’t look bad. Peter leaps forward, dropping Harley’s hand and going to scoop up the clothes and dump them in the closet, and then place the books on the desk between the two twin beds. Harley glance around, the room isn’t that much nicer than his, it’s mostly just bigger. There’s the same plush carpet in here as there was in the hall, and from the bit of the wall Harley can see between posters and pictures that the wall is still the plain white. Peter looks a little nervous now, having Harley here, behind closed doors, in his bedroom.

“Uh, I’m gonna go to the bathroom and wash my face.” Peter looks over Harley “Do you want something to sleep in?” he asks, as he eyes Harley’s rumpled jeans, Harley doesn’t want to really sleep in his jeans, but he also doesn’t want to make things awkward- Peter is already moving over to the dresser at the end of the bed that Harley assumes must be his. He glances over at Harley

“These will probably be short on you since you’re taller than me, but uh. You can change into that if you want,” he shoves a pair of faded grey sweatpants into his hands. He has other clothes bundled into his arms, and with an awkward but quick smile, he turns and heads out the door. Harley sighes, rubbing his face with his hand as he takes a seat on Peter’s bed; it smelled like him, the whole room did. Which made sense because well, it was Peter’s room; Harley looked up at the Star Wars posters that were plastered along the walls. Harley had similar ones in how own room back one, he looked down at the sweatpants in his hands. He should change before Peter gets back so he doesn’t have to worry about explaining why he was just standing around. He strips down quickly, he doesn;t think he’d really mind if Peter walked in on him changing, but still, it would be better if he didn’t have to deal with the awkwardness of the whole thing.

The sweatpants are too short on him, they reach mid calf on him, and he’s sure they’re supposed to at least reach his ankles, it does make him smile at the idea of them on Peter, they probably pool over his feet just a tad.

Harley moves to fold his jeans up, and as he leans down he catches a whiff of his t shirt, it doesn’t smell bad, but like stale smoke and old alcohol, without thinking he goes to pull it off, he usually sleeps shirtless anyways-when the door opens. Harley freezes, his arms up as he’d been in the middle of pulling the shirt off his head, his chest and stomach exposed. After being frozen for a second too long he pulls his shirt off the rest of the way, he thought it wasn’t possible for Peter look at cuter, but he was definitely wrong.

His face is pink, rubbed clean of all the smudged makeup, and he looks small in the large white t shirt that says I survived my trip to New York and pink hello kitty pants. Harley smiles,

“Nice pants,” Peter flushes rolling his eyes.

“Whatever,” Harley can feel Peter’s eyes on him as he turns around to place his t shirt on top of his jeans, and checks his phone quickly.

“If you want to take my bed, I can sleep in Ned’s.” Peter offers, as he scratches the back of his neck awkwardly, Harley’s heart falters. He won’t lie, he was really hoping that Peter would share a bed with him. He wanted to wake up wrapped up in the smaller boy, and plus he was sure they wouldn’t go to sleep right away if they were in the same bed and that was totally okay with Harley Anything Peter wanted was okay with Harley.

“Uh, if you want. I mean I can sleep wherever, if you’d rather sleep in your own bed.” Peter bites his lip,

“We could share, if you wanted.” his brown eyes look so hopeful Harley has to resist the urge to jump him then and there. Of course that’s what he wanted, how could it not be so obvious?

“That’s fine with me, unless you’re a blanket hog,” Harley says, Peter rolls his eyes.

“Sometimes you just need a lot of blankets,” he says, as he pulls back the covers on his bed. Harley surprising himself, climbs in first, Peter reaches for the light switch before sliding in next to him, his shoulder pressing into Harley’s. Harley rolls onto his side, facing Peter who is laying on his back.

“I don’t usually bring people home on the first date,” Peter whispers, Harley wants so badly to kiss him, he’s not sure what’s holding him back.

“I don’t usually go home with people on the first date either,” Harley whispers back, and Peter laughs, he shifts, rolling so he’s on his side as well, their noses a finger’s breadth apart.

“I don’t think this has been a very normal first date,” Peter says, Harley knows he could do it. He’s positive that if he leaned in just the slightest bit, Peter wouldn’t object. He doesn’t though, he does shift slightly, bumping his nose into Peter’s, Peter must take it as a sign to lean in though, because he does. It’s sloppier kissing laying like this, because they’re both tired, it still sets Harley’s body on fire with excitement. When they pull apart he has a hard time opening his eyes again, the night seeming to finally catch up with him. Peter presses his lips lightly to the tip of his nose.

“I think this is the best first date,” Harley whispers, and he can feel Peter smiling into his shoulder, Harley smiles, insanely happy with the way this story is playing out.

Week 2! This is a continuation of last weekend's piece, and I'm excited to see what week three will bring!

@parknerprompts @spidey-lad

[jupiterparker]

Literal Perfection (p.p)

Words count: 1.6k

Paring: Peter Parker x Reader

Warnings: none

A/N: a/n: this is for @celestialparker and @galaxy-parker’s writing challenge

Prompt: “I wish you hadn’t told me.”

In which -> secrets aren’t the best

You were never a huge fan of secrets. It wasn’t like you had traumatic events associated with them or anything. It was just, in general, the feeling you had when it was revealed to you, or the fact that people were capable of them.

Sure sometimes secrets are for a good reason, such as surprise parties. However, you weren't even a surprise type of person.

But in general, secrets weren’t always good, they usually weren’t.

You decided that the day you found out that all your friends had banded together to exclude you. Usually, you all made plans together at lunch, but recently you had been busy with clubs and getting help from teachers. Because of that, you didn’t question why you didn’t know of plans until you asked about that.

But when you had a break coming up, you had asked about plans in advance. That week you were less busy than usual, so you had sat with them at lunch that entire week.

“Want to do something this break?” you asked your friends as you were crossing the road, going home from school. You were happy to actually be present for once at help make plans. But you weren’t expecting all the girls at your table to glance at each other and share a look.

“Um actually, we already have plans,” one of them said. You looked at her for clarification, and she instantly looked away. You frowned and turned to everyone else, only to be met with silence.

“Anywhere there?” you joked, hoping to lighten the mood.

“I mean… I guess you can come though” someone finally said, “if you want” she added on coldly. You bit your lip hurt, that last part made you feel cautious about going, like you would be a stranger, intruding.

You took a deep breath and continued, “when did you make plans?”

“We discussed it in a group chat,” the same girl said slowly, like she was choosing her words carefully not to hurt your feelings, making her self the representative for the rest of them.

You raised an eyebrow at this, a gut feeling telling you that something worse was about to come “Are we friends?”

“No, we haven’t been for months,” your friend said, “goodbye.” And with that was the last time you saw that group. They left you in shock in the middle of the road.

Your mental health disoriented slightly, and you felt super self-conscious as you replayed past memories in your head. Those memories showed small signs here and there that indicated that they weren’t ever your friends.

You came home to your parents in tears and explained it all to them. You wanted to stay home the entire week, but they convinced you to go out at least once.

It was almost surreal of how quickly your luck switched, as next thing you knew, you met Peter.

Very early in your newfound friendship, you made it very clear how you felt about secrets, and to your surprise, he agreed wholly.

Suddenly life seemed perfect. Peter introduced you to his friends, Ned and MJ, and bit by bit they become your friends also. To add the cherry on the cake, your parents were so happy with your sudden switch in mood that they let you transfer to Midtown High so you could attend with Peter and friends.

It really was perfect. Almost too perfect, and you had a constant sense of deja vu anytime you were with Peter. You pushed it over to the side, however, as you were so desperate to finally be happy. Your connection with Peter was so unique, you two became so close so quickly, it was only natural that you developed a crush on him.

By now, you had decided to live for you, to live to be happy. And in this case, being happy meant confessing your crush to Peter, no matter the outcome, cause no secrets right?

The plan was simple, get ice cream at Peter and your’s favorite place and while walking home, confess.

That day came, and you were so nervous, hoping that everything would go to plan. And for the most part, it did.

You two had just gotten ice cream, and luckily there wasn’t much of line, which was really unusual for that shop.

And there you were all of a sudden, walking right next to Peter. You counted the number of steps until you reached your lucky number, because on that step you were going to confess.

But then the scream happened.

It was this foggy scream that seemed to be coming from everywhere at once, the building shook, and people all around you ran.

It hurt your head especially as the scream seemed to be coming from next to your ear, but at the same time from the other side of the city. You both were worried about your safety, and followed suit of everyone else and ran to Peter’s house for shelter.

But at least your life was perfect as you still ended up confessing your crush to Peter when you arrived at your house. You were genuinely nervous and had butterflies in your stomach. Those only intensified in nervousness when he smiled at you.

It was a genuine, happy smile, for it turns out his feelings were mutual, and as he admitted that, you couldn’t help but notice that something was off.

But again, you chose to ignore it, as your best friend was now your boyfriend, life was perfect.

Now a month had gone by, and you had noticed a gradual change in Peter. Sure people change, but a small nagging part inside you couldn’t help but wonder if he was changing like your friends did, if he was changing to betray and hurt you.

You hated that your insecurity got so bad that you had to ask him, but you still did.

“What's up?” you said, waving your hand in front of his face to grab his attention.

“What do you mean?” Peter replied, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion.

“Peter.”

“Y/N” he teased back.

“Not funny,” you teased, pushing his side playfully before turning serious again, “you’ve been acting weird since we started dating.”

“No, I haven’t!” Peter said, and his whole mannerism seemed to scream SECRET! to you

“You know how I feel about secrets” you whispered, giving him a slight puppy eyes.

At that, Peter put his head down defeated, “I-“ he said, not even having the words.

“You don’t have to tell me if it’s good, just promise me it is” you tried comforting, hoping in your heart the secret was for a good surprise. But all you got was silence in return, confirming your initial thought, “It’s not is it?”

“Y/N im sorr” Peter started, before you cut him off.

“Forget it, just tell me, what is it?”

“You won’t want to hear this” Peter warned, giving up on denying the existence of the secret.

“But I have to hear it” you argued back, you need some resolution, so you could move on with your life and not have any regrets from this moment, from this relationship.

“No, you don’t.”

“YES I DO PETER, I CAN’T HANDLE BEING HURT WITHOUT KNOWING IT” you screamed back at him, unable to hold it in anymore.

Peter sighed, whispering to himself, "but now you are going to be hurt because you know.”

“Peter just tell me” you begged, putting your hand on his knee.

He brushed it off, asking “are you sure?”

“100%.”

Peter looked at you, as if searching your face and savoring the image of it before saying “wake up.”

“What?” you asked, unsure if you heard him.

“This isn’t real,” he said almost robotically, confusing you more.

“I’m sorry?”

“You’ve been dreaming since what happened with your friends, since you met me” Peter tried explaining again.

“How?” you asked, unsure of how this could be a dream, it all seemed so real, so perfect. But then again, dreams are perfect.

“You know the scream a month ago?” Peter reminded as you nodded in confirmation before he continued, “It was someone yelling near you, yelling your name.”

“It was just a vague sound,” you said, unsure how your name could even be heard in what was just a loud screech and rumble of the world.

“But it reminded me that this is just in your head.”

“But how did you know?” you asked, wondering if you were just stupid or oblivious.

“I’m part of you, part of your subconscious” Peter explained. You guess that made sense. After all, if you were in a dream, your subconscious would know, while you, your conscious might not necessarily know.

“Now wake up” Peter ordered. You looked in his face one more time, trying to memorize it so you could bring his face and the memories with you into the real world.

As he and the rest of your perfect life faded to oblivion, you whispered in the void “I wish you hadn’t told me.”

You closed your eyes, and when you opened them again, you were greeted with loud sounds and lights. The sounds and sights of a hospital to be exact. There was a constant beeping of your heart monitor, and at the sight of you waking, the room was filled with nurses and doctors.

The fatigue set in again, and you went back to sleep, a dreamless sleep. As you met with your parents and reunited, you learned the hard truth. When you were with your friends, you were so shocked at finding out their true feelings about you, that you had froze in the middle of the road, hit by a car.

When your parents finally left so you could digest everything, you were left staring out the window, hoping in your heart if Peter could be out there.

Taglist: @djjffkd, @pallored, @your-daily-dose-of-fangirl, @penisprkr, @tuttigunner, @doihavetobesocialrightnow, @supernatural-strangerthings-1980, @lovelyh0lland, @sprinklemetommy, @marvelsmagics, @yoinksholland, @emocultistrat, @moonkissedtom, @hello-love06, @embrace-themagic, @fireboltrose7559, @ourdeliciousfoxcollector, @avenged-nightmare, @adventures-of-sabrina, @christmas-marvel, @tom-hollands-eyelash, @fallinallintom, @peppermintandparker, @zenithzendaya, @celestialparker, @oh-dear-tommy, @paradoxparker, @futzingclint, @tony-starks-ego, @tommy-braccoli, @blackberryfaith*, @laurfangirl424, @rrainydayy, @galaxy-parker, @mischiefmanaged49, @spideypeach, @scottyisthatyou, @peterspanish, @fufaation15*, @theprincesofasgard, @nasa-parker, @v0idbella @fuckwaad, @helloiknowimcrazy, @buresque, @book-of-blue004m* @bringer-of-chaos, @what-is-yeet, @lubrielx, @ticklishrainbow*, @ukulele-tea-and-ocean, @adorablyparker, @onlyfangirlsunderstand, @irnbby, @natashasnight, @fangirlwithasweettooth, @fandom-fangirl07, @dreamerjewels

*unable to tag

[stevie-steven-stevington]

ned!!!

there really was a split second where i had NO idea what this was referring to despite posting about character headcanons literally 8 seconds ago but anyway

he listens to a lot of really soft, gentle music. think dodie, mxmtoon, troye sivan, etc

he won’t eat pizza with like. “”regular”” amounts of tomato sauce on it. like he has to specifically order “light sauce” or it’s intolerable 

he was very serious about being peter’s guy in the chair. he sticks to this promise and at least once or twice a week he’ll connect to peter’s comms and be in his ear through patrol

(he says it’s because it’s so fucking cool and how could he pass up the opportunity to help spider-man but. it’s mostly because he worries. a lot.) 

on that note, ned’s definitely a worrier. he puts others before himself a lot, but in a different way than peter does - where peter’s actively putting his life on the line and it’s very high stakes, ned just. doesn’t know how to say no and is way too willing to take other people’s problems on as his own (i was just reading a really good fic about this!! it’s The Guy in the Chair by @whumphoarder)

thinks brownies are better than cake (he’s right)

his favorite ice cream is rocky road 

rereads books when he’s stressed or sad or just needs a distraction

keeps a very detailed planner but will also forget that said planner exists at least 30% of the time

favorite song changes all the time. the one he comes back to the most is “i’m so tired...” by lauv and troye sivan (the stripped version)

definitely knows how to play the ukulele. likes to play it for peter when peter’s stressed out. it calms him down and the calmer peter is, the calmer ned is

is perfectly content with his small friend group. people think he’s odd sometimes for not wanting to make more friends but he could never find friends better than peter and mj, so why would he even bother?

realized he was gay when he was 15 (no, i don’t care about the betty/ned thing in ffh. i don’t care.). came out to peter 3 weeks later over one of the star wars movies and a bowl of cheddar cheese popcorn

side note - he likes star trek better than star wars. he just watches star wars because peter loves it so much and ned loves the look peter gets on his face when he agrees to watch

side note to the side note - that look is what made him realize he was in love with peter (because i literally can’t do anything without making it interwebs)

[stardyng]

Personality wise D may not be close to Joffrey but she's literally killed more people than he has and she'll kill even more in the future. Also I haven't seen anyone compare her to Hitler just the fact that she shares a bit in common with the imagery of the nazi's which is true. Seriously, personality cult, white pure blood(she's a proud targ), red and black flag. If you're mad about people bringing up Hitler then take it up with the show.

I don’t necessarily think that drawing parallels between Daenerys and other antagonistic characters is a bad thing. For example, there are multiple edits and text posts that compares certain things that Joffrey or Ramsey did, with things that Daenerys did. I think it’s rather valid. In the series itself, we see Sansa rightfully pointing out that Jon doesn’t listen to anything his advice him, just like Joffrey did (though facts are that even Joffrey was better than Jon at letting others in his council have a voice in what happens) and I completely agreed with her. So when it comes to parallels and comparing these two characters, I’m all for it. 

I just personally do not believe that Daenerys is even close to being as bad as Joffrey. That does not mean that I think she is good person. That does not mean that I think she’s flawless. If the only compliment that I can give her is that she’s better than Joffrey, than the bar is still pretty low because she’s still a pretty problematic person. Let’s look at the facts, Joffrey liked hurting other people for the sake of hurting them. Their pain, their humiliation and their death gave him joy and was genuinely entertaining to him. I also do think that he legitimately had a major effect in the wrecking of the seven kingdoms. The riverlands especially suffered under his rule, and him executing Ned Stark led to a series of events that dragged the north and the iron islands into the war. That’s obviously not forgetting his treatment of the people in King’s Landing itself. The thing is that he didn’t mistreat them because he was incompetent and incoherent in his rule (though he definitely was also that), he mistreated them because he could, and it gave him joy to hurt these people.

Daenerys is of course no saint, and I pointed it out so much here that I just find it odd that I even got an ask in the first place criticizing me for not being even more anti about her character. Many of my most popular posts on here essentially boils down to me criticizing her for her complete incompetence and incoherence when it comes to ruling, as well as criticism of her and her family for their tyrannical and imperialistic tendencies. Daenerys definitely brought a rather large amount of death and destruction in Essos, and will probably bring more in Westoros. However, a large part of it is because she blunders and blunders, and never stops blundering. So much of the population of Essos suffered because of that, especially the former slaves. They deserved much better than someone who prioritized pleasing the masters. Plus, she wasn’t even competent at the job in the first place. Then, the rest of it is how cruel she can be. I am definitely not here to defend her cruelty and her horrible actions, however, most of her most destructive moments were aimed at cartoonishly horrible people, even though the reason why she killed them wasn’t because they were terrible. Of course, she used the fact that they were terrible to not feel bad about it later, but not only were they atrocious people, but she didn’t just kill them because she likes seeing people in pain. She did it because she had a goal, and sometimes (yeah, like I said, she’s still a shit person) her goal wasn’t completely selfish. That being said, there’s a lot to criticize about her motivations, such as the fact that a lot of it is base on tyranny (killing people to gain power, and killing people in order to have a large group of people fear her). So yeah I agree with the fact that her actions directly affected a larger sum of people, and she killed more people (though the fact that she had four more years to live than Joffrey does help), and all of her actions makes her an absolutely terrible person, but she’s not worse than Joffrey, though the consequences of her action’s are worse than Joffrey’s. Still, she definitely has a chance of becoming as bad as him.

Also, where have I displayed any anger at people stating that she’s the Hitler of this series? I don’t care about Daenerys enough to get mad for her sake. I just don’t think it’s true. Again, me saying that she’s not Hitler doesn’t make that comparing certain aspects of their character is a bad thing. There’s comparisons to be made, there’s similar elements to them, but that does not make her worse or as bad as him morally speaking, despite being an absolute mess of a person. There’s even an interview from one of the people part of the show of Season 6 where they pointed out that she wasn’t as bad as Hitler, but there’s some comparisons that can be made. I agree with that. Points were literally made. Going as far as saying that she’s as bad or worse than him though…I don’t know about that. So yeah, go off about how proud she is of her pure targaryen blood, of the color motif, about the cult…because you’re right on the mark. The writers wanted you to question all of these parts about her, and intentionally put traits that can be found in some of history’s worst people in her. I want more of these parallels and these comparison because they are interesting and eye-revealing. However, these things don’t make her these people, though they can definitely be used as proof that she’s an antagonist that’s hiding in plain sight.

[hopevalley]

WCTH Write-Ups: 1.5, “The Dance”

Good morning, and welcome to another episode write-up! Two in a row! I feel like I’m on a roll, here!

In the last episode, we saw answers to a lot of questions, mostly in regards to the church fire. Cat was innocent, the fire was an accident, and Mr. Spurlock framed Cat out of bitter spite because she told him she wasn’t interested in him.

In this episode, the town finally gets some new miners! 

12 of them, to be exact. This doesn’t even come close to replacing the 47 who died, but I guess it’s a start? Anyway, they’re not too happy about walking into the saloon only to find it’s inhabited by a whole classroom. 

“We’ve spent six days crossing this cursed country. We came a long way to work in this mine. Least we can get is a drink.” Six days? That’s it? I mean, that’s nothing compared to how most of these people got out here. They were probably able to take a train and then get wagons instead of having to cross it all by horse, so... I don’t know. Six days is nothing. Try six months of travel and then I’d feel like you deserved a drink.

“Company’s just hiring single men.” Gee I wonder why. Maybe that has something to do with it being cheaper and easier, and they can house ‘em in the saloon rooms in smallish groups. I mean, there can only be so many rooms up there... Maybe 3? That puts four men to a room up there...

Anyway, I love Emily Dickinson so much, and for an episode to start with one of her poems is lovely. Billy Hamilton might be scummy, but Andrew Walker, his actor, does a beautiful delivery of the first stanza. 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all -

First of all, this poem is a delightful addition to the series, but I don’t think that its theme should be overlooked. This is a poem about hope, but the series itself isn’t just about the general concept of hope, it’s about...the kind of hope that you feel through the worst times in your life, that protects you, that gets you through the storm; it’s about...hope everlasting. So it’s really fitting that it’s here, but I think with all of the other things that go on, it’s easily passed over.

Also, Billy is a smoooooth criminal... Calling her professor... That’d make me feel special, too. ;)

Anyway, Abigail returns for this episode, and we see a bunch of town women coming together to unravel sweaters to repurpose for baby blankets and clothes for Carla, a very pregnant lady. 

Also present are Florence, Elizabeth, Cat, Mary, and someone I don’t know.

“My husband wasn’t a chivalrous man, but he provided just fine for Caleb and me.”

I just want to say that I enjoy Mary’s character a lot. We don’t really see anyone else like her for the rest of the series, so it’s sad for me that after her little plotline wrapped up, she left the series.

Most of these women are able to admit to their husbands’ faults in, perhaps, more private company, but I think Mary’s admission is realistic and to-the-point. Her husband wasn’t much of a romantic, or maybe even a good lover, but he did all right as a provider and that was good enough. These days we might find it really sad to think about—I know I do—but in 1910 things would have been a lot different for these women. A reasonably good provider was about as good as it got, sometimes.

And Abigail echoes Mary’s point:

“You’re right, Mary. We all know how hard it is to find a good man.”

And then Carla: “Or a good father for our children.”

That they have to sometimes choose whether he’s a good husband, good lover, good provider, or good father is just awful. But that’s that on that, I guess. 1910, everybody!

Carla’s definitely at that late part of pregnancy where everything hurts and nothing is comfortable and sleeping is basically impossible. Doubly so for her because she has a little boy to take care of already, so it’s not as if she can take a nap whenever the mood strikes!

“Mounties and marriage: two subjects that don’t go together. At the academy they told us, if the Mounties wanted you to have a wife, we would have issued you one.”

Watching Jack put his foot into his mouth at the speed of light should be a little fun, and I know when I first saw this episode I was amused, but this is my fourth or fifth time watching this episode... Now I can’t help but think that this kind of...set up is actually an ongoing problem in the series. That is to say, Jack didn’t actually say anything bad? Anything unreasonable? Elizabeth literally just twisted his words to make what he said sound worse. I mean, women aren’t delicate, but he can’t exactly come out and say, “If a woman wants to pee she has to sit down or squat, and out in the wilderness with other men/soldiers around, it’s not exactly conducive to cultivating a full and loving marriage.” Or, “Imagine being pregnant out there with no help for miles if something goes wrong, or when you need to deliver.” 

Jack is being perfectly reasonable and he’s saying it in a way that gives the audience the idea that he was hoping to make Elizabeth laugh. But she doesn’t laugh, and the narrative, since it mostly follows her around (even the music does this), suggests that he’s some kind of vaguely misogynistic guy who underestimates women’s skill and ability or even their perseverance.

Sound familiar?

Yeah, it sounds like s4 and s5 Bill Avery, right? Consistently painted as unreasonable for overestimating women. Even though nothing about Bill’s personality in the early seasons would suggest he is that type of person at all.

Well, I guess they had to pass Forced Foot in Mouth Syndrome onto someone. (And the really nasty part of me can’t help but think that Jack is kind of a victim of this literal writing disease for quite some time... I wonder if or how much this played into Dan’s choice to leave the series, in the end?)

But that’s just speculation.

Anyway, that whole scene can be summed up as “Elizabeth fishes for a date and pulls out the wrong fish. Maybe. Flings it back into the sea.”

Listen, we’ve all been Mary at some point; we’ve all done something completely embarrassing in a store and wanted the ground to swallow us up. Luckily for her, a reasonable looking man helps her pick up the mess and introduces himself as Dewitt Graves. 

This scene is actually like, several levels of good, because even the music changes to accommodate a feeling, in this case, Mary at the counter being told her tab is full. Nobody gets mad at Ned over this, but I wish they did; heck, I honestly wish he had his own plotline. But the way the camera pans to Florence while the piano plays is just so...awful. I mean, sure, we know Florence is going to gossip about this incident, but in this particular moment what’s highlighted by the narrative presentation is Mary’s situation. We’ve probably all been there, too: had a card declined, or a card reader couldn’t read it at least. It’s awful, and it’s much worse for Mary. How’s she going to pay that tab off? (I also noticed the yarn in her basket... I wonder if it was to make something for Carla’s baby...)

It’s Mr. Graves to the rescue! Thank goodness. Even that scene is awkward and embarrassing...but at least she didn’t have to put everything back.

*Ned is the company store owner, so seeing him transition to a regular mercantile would be super, super cool. Plus he wouldn’t be a very popular person in town since he has to balance store credit and can’t do much more than the company policy allows him to, so that would have been a really fun plot to have.

Albert and Caleb interacting is another good scene, because Caleb gets to complain a bit about his family’s situation, and Albert gets to be understanding (and actually in more than just the episode he was introduced in, which sounds goofy but we need to be thankful for the little things). 

We also find out that Mary’s a pretty good cook.

After a couple of episodes without Abigail, it’s nice to see her back, and her patience is literally unmatched. I howled with laughter when a coworker told me he wanted to plant pickles in his garden; he had no idea that pickles came from cucumbers!! Literally no idea. NONE. I could not contain my amusement. But Abigail is kind to Elizabeth and instead of mocking her ignorance, she makes each new thing into a learning experience. And Elizabeth takes it in stride and even mocks her own ignorance a little bit.

“At home they were just in the serving dish... magically.” A shared joke; this was honestly and truly pretty cute.

Florence just barging into Abigail’s place out of nowhere was hilariously in character, but hey, she’s come with that hot goss so I guess that’s almost like she’s got a key. ;)

I love how Abigail doesn’t rise to the lure of gossip, though, and is just...practical about the situation? Mary’s had it harder than most, so it was nice of that man to buy her groceries. 

“I don’t think we can judge each other’s circumstances, Florence.”

“Are you ready to forget your Noah?”

“I will never forget my Noah, but at some point life goes on. For all of us. For you, too.”

And then Carla falls in the front door crying out for Abigail, kind of ruining this scene, or shunting it into the background.

Honestly, and again, this is the Abigail I loved as a character. She was good, but she wasn’t perfect, and her advice was always pretty gentle. I think she could have delivered it a little better, but she’s not wrong. Life does go on. But it made me think of Florence in s5, when Laura and Bill returned the note from the coat pocket to her. We learn about Florence so slowly that it’s wild to think at this point in the story we don’t really know her. She was madly in love with her Paul, and we know he adored her, too. 

I never got the feeling that Abigail felt that way about Noah, but something I’m more than willing to praise this show for is its diverse showcasing of relationships. Not every marriage was one of love at this time, and not every marriage that started out with love stayed that way. That’s still true today, though, isn’t it?

Anyway, these women oftentimes couldn’t support themselves, so relationships were their best bet. And I love that Abigail takes Mary’s side; it’s not fair to judge. As we see later in this episode, Mary’s position is difficult.

But back to this scene: when Carla needs help, even Florence rushes to help her and reassure her. 

This is the good stuff, you know what I mean? Abigail offering to let Carla move in for a while, Florence reassuring her that someone will look after her older boy, Elizabeth touched and moved by how these women step up and help one another.

“They go through life with such grace under fire. It makes me realize just how little I actually know about the real world. These women are teaching me by their example that when each of us offers a small kindness to a neighbor, it can become a very large blessing to the whole community.”

Like, Elizabeth isn’t stupid. She might be ignorant about how much work goes into making pickles, but she’s observant and willing to learn. In Elizabeth’s former life, she had no reason to think about these sorts of things; what ‘small kindness’ would she have offered her Hamilton neighbors? What kind of ‘community’ was she a part of there? It was a very different place and a different way of living. Here, in Coal Valley, small kindnesses oftentimes go a long way. People don’t have much; sometimes small kindnesses are all they have to give.

I really loved the touch of Mr. Backus showing the guys around a bit...recommending they all become a teetotaler (sober) like him. It’s not a long scene for him, but he’s clear-headed and obviously making an effort to improve himself...and he’s happy with that decision. It’s also kind of cool that he goes over to hang with Jack a bit afterward and have a drink of coffee.

Anyway, Billy puts on those smooth moves again with Elizabeth, and of course they work. He keeps it pretty low-key, though. And he doesn’t finish the poem. :(

Jack’s suspicion of him is kind of...eh. The guy hones in on Elizabeth but like, she’s the only really young woman in town that we’ve seen. Mary might be the next oldest? It’s hard to say. 

Anyway, any sane young miner would have the hots for Elizabeth... Just sayin’.

The real question is: who is that curly haired guy and why didn’t he stick around?

I still really enjoyed Sam (the miner that Jack locked up) telling him that night in the jail was actually “kind of peaceful.” I’m pretty sure this is when Jack decides to move into the jail.

James, the former school bully, asks Caleb about his mom’s attempt to get a new husband, which of course Caleb denies. 

I had to look James up to see if he was supposed to be the son of a character we know, and...I don’t think he is. His last name is Fermont. Maybe he’s the son of the unknown dark-haired woman who was at Abigail’s house for the sewing circle?

Anyway, there’s something to be said, again, about Ned. 

He handles all telegrams so he knows everyone’s business. Even police business. It’s wild that he doesn’t have a larger role in the story at any point, and has never had his own arc.

“No one’s ever called me Mr. Graves.”

He’s charming. You know, he’s not the most attractive guy ever, but he’s a good person and he’s got a nice sense of humor and he’s humble. I liked Dewitt a lot from the start. And y’know what else I like? That he looks a mess after a day in the mine. You know this guy works hard and he’s tired as heck and all the lines in his face took 10x worse with the coal dust, and... Just... He could be a real person.

And he clearly thinks Mary is cute and sweet as heck. I love her hesitation, though; she’s not sure what she should do, but she invites him to dinner because it’s what’s best for everybody.

“I know it’s making me a better person.” Elizabeth wanting to be a better person is great, too.

Jack’s intrusion and comments are so pointed though. “All you need is good aim.” I mean, also, I don’t know that he ever is shown going hunting again? Huh.

Anyway, Billy starts pushing a little more seriously; and Elizabeth doesn’t quite accept the bait. She admits she has dreams but says, “Dreams are like birthday wishes. Say them aloud and they might not come true.”

And then we get the part of the season that drives me bonkers: the poem that Billy gives to Elizabeth and claims as his own.

I wrote an entire post about how this drove me nuts, so I won’t repeat too much of it here, but c’mon. This is a famous ballad that Elizabeth probably grew up playing on the piano, or at least singing ‘round the piano. I find it really hard to believe she wouldn’t immediately know that he didn’t write it.

I mean, she does say, “It’s very familiar... I can’t place the poet, though.” But the fact that she doesn’t remain suspicious about that is wild.

On the plus side, Andrew Walker has such a blessed ability for reciting poetry. I wouldn’t have minded hearing him recite more. He’s good. 

I think with a little tweaking, I could have found this whole thing a bit more believable; maybe a different poem, one that she probably wouldn’t have had such an exposure to. Something more...obscure that she probably did read in the last few years, but which might have been easily forgotten in her studies. Not something she probably grew up singing? I don’t know.

I guess I just gotta give the writers credit for the way Billy tries to push off her feeling that it’s familiar with humor/romance and she just goes with it.

Listen, Dewitt is a good man. He doesn’t push Mary’s boundaries, he apologizes easily, he shows an understanding of Caleb’s situation, he waits for Mary to be seated before he sits, he’s genuinely sorry about taking the wrong hook on the wall... 

I was frustrated with Caleb watching it, but I totally got it. 

I think my favorite thing about this scene is that when Dewitt asks Mary to the dance (in this roundabout awkward kind of adorable way), she says she honored but asks to have time to think about it, and he’s fine with that.

“That’s all a man can ask for, is a little bit of hope.”

It’s sweet, but it’s not over the top. 

Mary’s conversation with Caleb is a little sad...but I feel like he’s just too young to really understand what it is she’s saying when she tells him: “Things don’t always turn out the way we want them to. Now, I’m your mama, and I’m going to do what I have to do for our family.” And then, a little bit later, “I need to look out for our future now. It’s what I’m doing as your mom. And you need to understand that.”

Clearly she’s trying to say, “I can’t provide for us by myself. I need a man and it’s not what I want to have to resort to, but that’s just how it is. It sucks but you need to understand that I don’t have a choice.”

I mean, we’ve seen her situation: the tab is full at the company store, she’s relying on Caleb to catch fish just to have something to eat that isn’t potato soup, and without store credit even potato soup is off the menu. How are they going to last the winter? 

In its own way, the whole situation is tragic. Even if Mary wasn’t madly in love with her husband, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want the time to grieve properly. Unfortunately her feelings aren’t allowed to matter; she can’t let them. She has to do what she can to ensure that her son has a future.

Something I don’t like about this episode is the suggestion that the town had a midwife “for years” who “left after the mining accident.” It’s one of those situations that might have been best left alone. I would have preferred that Abigail be an unofficial midwife or something, or even a short discussion about how their supposed midwife was just a woman who had birthed six children or eight children in her younger years and had experience and was better than no one at all.

The only reason I can think of that a midwife would leave town would be if she was afraid the town’s infrastructure would collapse and it would die. But eh. I think the worldbuilding around this midwife is extremely fragile and not very well-done. At least it was mentioned? I don’t know.

The Elizabeth/Jack conversation about Billy is kind of painful...and again we have Jack flinging his foot down his own windpipe... Sigh. The more it happens the less I like it. 

That’s all I can really say right now.

Elizabeth’s conversation with Mary is... I don’t know. It’s heavy. Not gonna lie, I wanted to see Mary all done up. That said, it’s probably for the best that Elizabeth brought up Caleb and ruined the moment. 

Mary tries to be frank with Elizabeth about her situation:

Mr. Graves is a good man

I think he may care for me

I didn’t think another man would ever pay attention to me again

I’m not willing to waste another minute frittering away my son’s future when this could be a chance for us.

Elizabeth says she “understands” to which Mary says, “I don’t think you do understand. You were raised with all of the options in the world available to you, and I have next to nothing.”

Mary isn’t wrong, and this is something I like about the early episodes; Elizabeth has GOOD INTENTIONS by saying she “understands” but there’s no way she fully can. She can’t really grasp what Mary is going through, not fully. It’s a shame because Elizabeth really didn’t mean any harm by it; she also really did want Mary to wear a pretty dress! But Elizabeth’s worry about Caleb came at the expense of her worry for Mary, and what that did was alienate Mary from feeling like she could rely on Elizabeth.

This is the kind of “miscommunication” that is believable and real, and that I wish the show had continued to utilize where it matters.

And here we’ve got it... Florence busts into the jail where Jack is and tells him that someone stole her late husband’s gold watch. 

“Someone broke into your house?”

“Right in the middle of the night with my child slumbering nearby!”

Missing is: gold watch, cufflinks. Both out of her top dresser drawer. 

Well, Florence has a child. Apparently. I don’t think we ever find out who the child is, let alone see them. I’m pretty sure this ends up retconned by the end of the first season/at the beginning of the second. Unless Florence’s “child” is a cat.

Anyway, something I do appreciate? That Florence is asked to keep quiet about this (so that the thief doesn’t get nervous and skip town) and...she actually...does so.

I find it hard to believe that the entire class would panic over a snake, but okay.

Caleb’s talk with Elizabeth is nice. She’s not always very good at talking to other adults about their pain, but I think she’s pretty good with the kids. Adults can’t help but see hidden meanings and nuance in everything; kids tend to just hear the words that are said.

Anyway, Caleb’s struggle with the memories, with the idea that maybe for his mom memories are painful, but for him they’re all good... That gets me a little in the feelings. And how Elizabeth just jumps in to let Caleb talk about his dad by asking what he was like... Man, she really is pretty good with the children. They need to grieve too, and oftentimes it’s in a way that’s different to how we as adults get through it. Her place as a bit of an outsider lets her ask these questions without any issue.

And Caleb doesn’t say anything, you know, revolutionary about his pa. He just says that he was tall and strong and funny, he liked to sing and whistle and fish, and they cooked fish together on the riverbank after they caught ‘em. “Nobody can replace him... Nobody.”

Abigail goes to the dance with Carla’s instructions to dance a waltz for her (which Abigail does, with Mr. Backus) and a promise to return soon.

Last year I made a post about how this dance is a great example of the magic of season one and I don’t want to repeat it too much here, but in the first few seconds you get an idea of how well off people are financially just based on what they wear; you see Cat and Ned as part of the musical trio who is playing. You see the younger women with their hair down or partially down and all the older women with their hair up and you see Abigail take charge to get the party started (this would be more or less her job as the highest ranked mine employee’s wife).

Even cooler, some kids did come to the party. The dances are short. The second the waltz comes on Abigail gets the dance she told Carla she’d get, and Elizabeth comes into the room with Billy Hamilton.

And then Caleb shows up in his dad’s coat. 

Which gets me right in the feelings every time, but the best part about it is that, at first nobody even really notices he’s there; the other kids don’t mock him or anything. Everyone is just...touched when he cuts in on his mom’s dance with Dewitt.  

And Dewitt bows out gracefully--and a few people seem touched by it but most people are wrapped up in their own dance and a big deal isn’t made of it. It’s just a nice, short, surprisingly touching scene.

The episode ends with Carla in labor, Billy being sweet on Elizabeth, and Jack getting a telegram that says the company Billy claims to have worked for...has never heard of him. 

DUN DUN DUN...

Overall Thoughts:

The plot in this episode is a lot calmer than before. We have small things going on, but the big plot was definitely the concept of ‘moving on’ and of, I guess, doing what needs to be done—or at least respecting other people’s decision to do so.

I don’t actually have a lot of thoughts? I guess I sat around going, “Wow there are a lot of people named William in this series who go by something else I guess.” 

But other than that, I was pretty much satisfied with this plot. Very little about it annoyed me or made me want to do editing. I really enjoy Mary as a character, too; her motivations are unique to her in this show and I wish they had been a little more thoroughly explored overall, but we get a decent amount of attention on her for a background character! (Still, her story alone could be almost its own novel.)

To end, how about the entirety of that Dickinson poem, hm?

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all - And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - And sore must be the storm - That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm - I’ve heard it in the chillest land - And on the strangest Sea - Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of me.

(314) Emily Dickinson

See you all again next episode!